


Heartworms

by geckocest (Pye)



Category: From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Angst, Infidelity, Jealousy, Knotting, M/M, Oral Sex, Past Underage, Possessive Behavior, Pre-Series, Self-Lubrication, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-27
Updated: 2017-03-27
Packaged: 2018-10-11 04:44:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 29,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10455267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pye/pseuds/geckocest
Summary: A year ago, Seth left Richie. Now, he's married to Vanessa, and he's living in Vegas and things are good. Things are normal. But when Eddie calls Seth up and asks him to pick up a job with Richie, Seth starts to realize that he's not as done with his past as he thought.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This was one of the first geckocest fics I started writing, wayyy back around the end of S1 (!!!). A thousand thanks to Cho for both inspiring and reading this whole dang mess over for me, I never would have finished it without you boo. :*
> 
> I totally recommend listening to [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuQQIawCqBA&list=PLZqsyBiYZFQ0HfKqlGAYyCFUEg3i72QmN) while you read, 'cause I've had that album on repeat most of the time I was writing this and it's pretty much become this fic's anthem. And it's also just a great album. Yup!

\--

 

Seth's in the middle of fighting a particularly brutal hangover when he gets the call. He lets it ring three times over, debating the merits of answering it versus dealing with the ringtone banshee screaming in his ear until whoever's on the other end decides to give up.

 

Before he can decide what to do, Vanessa makes up his mind for him. She jolts up beside him and grabs the phone off the night table, thumbing the ‘answer' button as though it personally offended her.

 

"What?" she snaps, bleary eyed and obviously in no better shape than Seth. She listens for a moment, and then hands the phone over. Seth groans and bats at it, but she shoves it into his hands and pulls her pillow over her head.

 

"‘lo?" Seth mumbles, dropping his free hand over his face to shield his eyes against the bright morning sun streaming in through the blinds.

 

"Seth?"

 

Seth recognizes the voice immediately. "Eddie?"

 

" _Finally_ ," Eddie says in exasperation, "I've been trying to reach you for days."

 

Seth clears his throat, grimacing at the foul taste in his mouth. "We were outside of the service area until last night, what's up?"

 

"I need some help on a job."

 

Seth perks up, in spite of his pounding headache. "What is it?"

 

"A few things of mine were stolen, and I need them back. It's going down in a week, near Houston, and I can pay you and Vanessa ten grand for it."

 

_Ten grand_. That would go a long fucking way to getting them stable, they've been a little harder up for cash than they're used to lately.

 

But Eddie's not the kind of guy to offer things like this for free.

 

"What's the catch?"

 

Eddie doesn't miss a beat. "You'll be working with Richie."

 

Seth's stomach drops and nerves hit him in a wave. He grips the phone tighter to his ear, squeezing the plastic. "I don't think that's a good idea."

 

"You two cut the shit, work together, and you can have it. That's the deal."

 

Seth's too fucking hungover for this, his guts are starting to revolt and he doesn't know whether he wants to puke or bust out laughing at the surrealness of this whole conversation. Seeing Richie again was an inevitable prospect, but he doesn't feel anywhere near ready for it.

 

"I'll have to see if we can make time for it," Seth says. "And you have to include Vanessa too."

 

"Don't worry, I did," Eddie replies. Seth can almost _see_ Eddie's eye roll in the gusty sigh he lets out. "Look, give it some thought. Talk to Vanessa about it. If you decide to do it, let me know by the end of the week."

 

Seth hangs up like he's in a trance, and closes his eyes against the wash of pain starting to take root around his temple. He doesn't open them again for a long time.

 

\--

 

He brings up Eddie's offer with Vanessa later that day, once both of them feel a little less like death is right around the corner. Vegas nights are always a good time, but Seth could really do without the morning after.

 

"Ten grand?" Seth half expects Vanessa's eyes to light up with cartoon dollar signs, she looks so excited. "Of course we're taking this."

 

"I didn't tell you what the catch is yet," Seth says. "We have to do it with my brother."

 

To Seth's surprise, she looks at him like he's grown two heads. "What's the problem with that? You always say Richie's the best safe cracker in the business."

 

"I told you about that -" he struggles with the words, trying to remember exactly _what_ the story was that he'd told her. "That fight we had about my Dad's will. Before I met you."

 

Vanessa waves his protests away. "Richie sounds like a good asset, Seth," she says quietly. "And it's obvious that you miss him. It's written all over your face."

 

Seth looks down at his hands and feels Vanessa shift on the bed next to him, twining her fingers through his. "It's been a year, isn't it about time for you to mend that fence?"

 

_Mend that fence_. If she knew the real reason they split, she'd be singing a different tune, that's for sure. But she doesn't need to know, and he's not going to tell her, because some skeletons are meant to stay buried six feet under.

 

"I'll think about it," he promises, and takes her hand in his.

 

\--

 

_Seth manifests when he's sixteen._

 

_Sixteen is late, by any standard, and they'd all come to the conclusion earlier that year that Seth was a beta - which was fine. Maybe Seth was jealous sometimes of Richie's heightened senses and his strong, alpha build, but being a beta isn't a bad hand to be dealt._

 

_But then he gets the flu (or what they thought was the flu), and ends up bedridden for days, achy and nauseous, head pounding, with an uncomfortable sense of dread, of impending doom, a feeling he isn't able to place until he wakes up in the middle of the night, shivering and too hot and horny out of his mind, lower body covered in his own slick._

 

_Richie's sleeping beside him, just the way he always is, in the twin bed they've shared in Eddie's spare room ever since they were kids. Except right now, instead of the familiar soap and Richie smell Seth's used to, Richie smells different. Stronger, better, enticing in a way that Seth can't even begin to describe._

 

_In fact, the entire world seems brighter, like he's gone from seeing everything in black and white to blazing technicolour. And it's not just the scents, it's the feelings, the sensation of sheets against his skin suddenly near excruciating, the desire in his guts ratcheted up a million degrees higher than he'd ever thought was possible._

 

_He whines, pressing his face into his pillow, cringing into it like he could escape his body and run away from all of this, from the damp covering the backs of his thighs and the sick in his stomach and this desperate fucking need to be **filled**. To **submit**. _

 

_Richie mumbles something in his sleep and flops over so his arm is splayed across Seth's back and it's like a supernova explodes behind Seth's eyelids when Richie touches him, this sudden surge of **goodrightyesyesyes** so strong that Seth's helpless not to arch up against it, trying to get more of that contact. _

 

_Along with the flurry of sensation comes the realization, clear as day._

 

_Whatever Seth needs right now, whatever his body's craving, Richie can give it to him. Richie can make this all go away._

 

_Seth scrambles up onto his knees, wincing at the drag of fabric over his sensitive skin as he kicks off the sheets. "Richie," he says urgently, shaking Richie by the arm. Richie groans and bats at him, but Seth persists, pawing at Richie's chest and shaking his shoulders until Richie finally comes to._

 

_"Hold your fucking horses," mumbles Richie, sluggish and sleepy, rubbing at his face. "It's not morning yet."_

 

_"Richie, hurry **up**."_

 

_With the light of the full moon streaming in through the window, it's bright enough in the room that Seth can see Richie's eyes widen as his senses finally come online._

 

_"Seth? Seth, God, why are you-"_

 

_"I don't know," Seth whispers. He closes his eyes against a pulse of heat that seems to steal the air from his lungs, leaving him gasping for breath._

 

_"Shouldn't I get Eddie?" Richie asks, shuffling up into a sitting position, cornered between Seth and the wall at his back. He looks like a deer caught in headlights, trapped animal nervous, chest heaving. "Or- someone? Anyone?"_

 

_Seth shakes his head frantically. The thought of Richie leaving him alone even for a second is too much to handle. Richie smells so good, so right, like everything Seth has ever needed in his entire life._

 

_"You're a **beta** , Seth, you're not supposed to be in heat," Richie hisses. _

 

_"Richie **please** ," Seth whines. "I need you, I need **this** , fuck, **Richie** , just **touch me**." He grabs Richie's hands and puts them on his hips, and it's like Richie's frozen, statue still. _

 

_"Seth-"_

 

_Seth guides one of Richie's hands down, urging him to touch, to press his fingers to the place where he's aching, deep down inside. Richie's scent, that new one, different than the one Seth's always known but quickly becoming his favourite, goes darker, musky with interest. Seth shudders, overwhelmed._

 

_"I **need** you." _

 

_Richie makes a pained noise, and then he gives, yanking Seth forward into his lap and letting out a growl that sends a shudder of need pulsing through Seth. It's so backseat desperate, clothes shoved aside and tossed away and torn apart to get at each other faster._

 

_When Richie finally slides into him Seth's eyes nearly roll back with the shock of it, intense like nothing he's ever felt before, nothing he'd even thought was possible. He bites his lower lip close to bloody to hold back the scream threatening at the back of his throat._

 

_Richie presses his face into Seth's shoulder and keeps it there, letting Seth control the pace, letting Seth control all of it, choking off every groan that bubbles up out of him like he's afraid for Seth to hear him. Richie's fingers dig deep into Seth's hips as Seth claws at his back, blunt nails scratching for purchase and leaving red welts in their wake._

 

_Neither of them last very long, Seth spilling hot onto Richie's belly when Richie's knot starts to swell inside him, and thirty seconds later Richie's coming too, sinking his teeth into Seth's shoulder through the fabric of Seth's t-shirt._

 

_The tie could have lasted a small eternity for all Seth knows, and by the time they're able to pull apart again he can't stop shaking, shivering in Richie's arms._

 

_So Richie kisses him._

 

_Richie's lips are clumsy against his, hands painfully shy on Seth's skin, like he's afraid to touch, like Seth might break under his grip if he presses too hard. It occurs to Seth that this is probably Richie's first kiss - this was Richie's first everything._

 

_"I'm sorry," Seth says, eyes filling with hateful tears. "Fuck, fuck, Richie, I'm a-"_

 

_An omega, he finishes, only to himself, because he can't make the word come, like it's poison on his tongue._

 

_"It's okay," Richie says, arms tight around him, stroking his back. "Doesn't matter what you are. It's you and me, Seth. We'll deal with this together."_

 

\--

 

Seth takes the job.

 

Maybe it's against his better judgement, but the money's too good to pass up, and it's just for a couple nights before they go their separate ways again. Easy.

 

After all, it's been a whole year since he last saw Richie. Seth's got a wife now and a future that isn't intertwined with Richie's and that's just fine. Normal, even. Like regular brothers. Just like Seth wanted.

 

But the rest of him doesn't seem to have gotten the memo because the nerves are still there anyway, making themselves known in an ever present butterfly flutter.

 

They make the trip to Austin in three days, stopping along the way for Vanessa to sightsee and on one occasion, drop in on an old friend.

 

When they finally pull up to Eddie's house around ten on a Tuesday morning, it looks smaller than Seth remembers it being, like age has caused it to shrink into itself and bow inward like a cartoon caricature. But the front door has the same old lock it always has, and he's still got a key mixed in with the rest of his.

 

He steps inside with an uncomfortable sense of trepidation shivering up his spine, glancing around for Eddie or Richie. The light's on in the kitchen, set a ways up the hallway and to the right, and Seth kicks off his shoes and suddenly feels seventeen again, sneaking back inside with Richie hours after curfew.

 

The house smells achingly familiar, faint cigarette smoke and laundry detergent and wood, from all of the unfinished beams that crisscross the ceiling. He pads down the hallway with Vanessa at his heels, instinctively stepping over the creaky board by the foot of the stairs, and stops dead when he sees Richie.

 

Richie's seated at the dinner table, eating a bowl of what looks like Lucky Charms and leaning over a large map Eddie's got spread out in front of them both. He's relaxed, hair tousled and messy like he just got out of bed, wearing jeans and a t-shirt and a white pair of socks. He also looks _huge_ , larger than Seth remembers him being, like his alpha genes have finally caught up with him.

 

"Hey," Seth says stupidly.

 

Richie looks up and his eyes go wide and his jaw goes slack in surprise when he sees Seth. Seth suddenly realizes that he doesn't know what Eddie's told him, or if Richie was expecting to see him at all.

 

"Seth!" Eddie booms, jumping up from his chair and tugging Seth into a tight hug, which Seth returns distractedly, all of his attention stuck on Richie like glue. "And this must be Vanessa."

 

She nods and smiles and Eddie hugs her too, before motioning for them both to come inside.

 

Richie stands, and for a second Seth doesn't know whether to brace for a punch or a hug, but Richie just stays where he's at, face stony as he crosses his arms over his chest, looking to Eddie in a clear question.

 

"Alright, I don't know what the hell happened between you. And quite frankly, I don't care," Eddie adds as they both start to protest. "But I know what you can do when you put your heads together, and it's a whole lot better than the smalltime shit you've been pulling since you split."

 

Seth scowls. Him and Vanessa have been doing just fine for themselves, thank you very much.

 

"Richard, your partners for that job I was telling you about are gonna be Seth and Vanessa." Eddie's tone is the same firm one he used to use on them when they were kids. "That a problem for any of you?"

 

Eddie looks between them with a meaningful sharpness to his gaze that makes Seth shrink a little where he stands. Seth forgets sometimes that Eddie's just as dangerous a man as Dad was. Maybe even moreso, because he hides it carefully under the kind, gruff exterior.

 

Richie's expression has gone thunderous, but he's the first to speak. "No."

 

Eddie and Richie both look to Seth, Richie with the ghost of a smirk on his face, like he's just daring Seth to say yes.

 

"I'm here, aren't I?" Seth says. "Yeah, we're in."

 

Seth feels Vanessa shift beside him, pressing closer to his side.

 

"Excellent," Eddie says, going over to one of the cabinets and pulling out a couple of tumblers. "I'll brief you tomorrow on the job. Tonight, we'll catch up."

 

\--

 

They all end up in Eddie's living room, sipping on whiskey and going over what's happened in the past year. It's not like Seth hasn't talked to Eddie at all since he left, but they usually kept the conversations short, more like Eddie's version of a welfare check than anything else. He's always been far more talkative in person than he is over the phone.

 

"Where are you living now?" asks Eddie. "Last time I talked to Seth you were still in Alabama."

 

"Las Vegas," Vanessa smiles, taking a generous swallow of her drink. "We went there for our honeymoon and never left."

 

"Honeymoon?" Eddie says incredulously, leaning forward in his chair. "You didn't bother to tell us you got _married?"_ he says to Seth, almost sounding offended.

 

"It wasn't a big deal, nobody was invited," Seth says sheepishly, thankful for the gentle touch of Vanessa's hand on his arm, tracing up the lines of his tattoo. "It just kind of happened."

 

Eddie scoffs. "Well, congratulations," he says, holding up his glass in a toast. "You both look happy."

 

"Yeah, it's been good," Seth says, absently rubbing the gold band on his ring finger. "Great, actually."

 

Eddie nods and settles back into his chair again. "And here you always told me you'd never get married," he says with a grin.

 

Seth flushes. "Hadn't met the right person, I guess."

 

He looks over at Richie, kitty corner to the sofa with his elbow propped on the arm of the loveseat he's sitting on, chin resting on his fist. His glass is untouched on the table beside him and he hasn't said a word since they all sat down.

 

The conversation wanes and Seth takes a deep breath, looking around the room. There are a few new things, a stack of books he doesn't recognize, a new lamp ( _finally_ , him and Richie had fallen into the old one while they were playfighting years ago and it had never been the same since), and a collection of picture frames on the coffee table.

 

Seth stops at the pictures, a sudden strange tightness overtaking him. They're all old ones; him and Richie, ten years old and curled together on the same couch he's sitting on with Vanessa, twelve year old Richie laughing and holding Seth to his chest, their school photos from senior year.

 

Eddie had always had this _thing_ about pictures, insisted on taking them whenever there was a birthday or a graduation or a school dance. There's probably still a huge box somewhere in the house right now, full of blurry polaroids that didn't make the cut for a frame or an album.

 

Vanessa follows his gaze to the coffee table and lets out a squeal. "Is this _you?"_ she exclaims, picking up the picture of him and Richie on the couch. "You were so cute!"

 

"Were?" Seth grins.

 

"You know what I mean." She cuffs him playfully in the arm and smiles down at the picture again. "You and Richie look so close."

 

Seth looks at the photo. Richie's head is resting on his shoulder, both of them swamped under a mountain of blankets. He vaguely recalls the day this was taken; it was a few months after the fire and he'd been sick with a cold, and instead of staying away Richie had insisted on skipping school to care of him.

 

"We were," Seth replies quietly, not sure if the others are listening, not sure if he wants them to.

 

He glances at Richie again, disappointed when Richie's just got his nose buried in a book.

 

\--

 

Seth lingers on the couch in the living room after Eddie and Vanessa have retreated upstairs to go to bed. Richie's still here, though he's migrated to Eddie's favourite chair now, engrossed in his book.

 

Right now Richie's close enough that Seth can scent him even with his senses being dulled by suppressants, picking up on that faint musky alpha smell hidden under the soap and shampoo and aftershave. Even after so long it's still calming, makes Seth relax further into the cushions in spite of himself.

 

The only thing missing is the easy companionship, replaced now with tension so thick Seth thinks he could cut it with a knife.

 

He drowns in the silence a while longer before he finally works up the courage to speak.

 

"Richard?" He hopes it doesn't sound as reedy to Richie as it does to his own ears.

 

Richie looks up at Seth, as if he's noticing the fact that he's still here for the first time. "What?"

 

Seth hadn't realized how desperate he's been to say it until it's coming out of his mouth. "I missed you."

 

Richie's mouth twists up into something like amusement, but there's no good humour in it.

 

"Let's get one thing straight," Richie says, dog earing his page and setting his book aside. "We do this job, we get the money, and then we're through. Then you can go back to playing Bonnie and Clyde and I'll go back to being me."

 

Seth doesn't know why he was expecting anything else. He looks down at his knees. "Fine."

 

Richie stands, flicking off the lamp to his right and killing the warm, welcoming glow. "Congrats on the wife, by the way," he says. "You really were desperate for a white picket fence, weren't you?"

 

Seth's eyes narrow. "Jealousy isn't flattering on you," he snaps, stung.

 

"Denial's not so hot on you either," Richie replies.

 

"Fuck you."

 

"Ask nicely."

 

Seth clenches his jaw and grits his teeth against another retort. Richie always has a goddamn comeback up his sleeve, an exceedingly annoying talent of his.

 

"Yeah, alright. I get it. I'm a jerk. Are _you_ done being a baby?"

 

Richie glares down at him. His unshakeable exterior seems to have cracked a little, and Seth crows with the victory.

 

"Whatever, Seth," Richie finally mutters, and stalks out of the room.

 

\--

 

Vanessa shakes Seth awake the next morning around nine - he's overslept, but that's par for the course, and stumbling half awake into Eddie's bathroom, with the turquoise tiles and the same old bathmat and the showerhead that drizzles more than it sprays, manages to make Seth so nostalgic he chokes up for a second.

 

It's so weird to be _home_ , where everything is the same except the one person who made it what it was.

 

He showers quickly, pulls on his clothes and digs through his bag, to the little makeshift pocket where he stashes his suppressants.

 

They seem so innocuous, white pills in an orange bottle, unlabeled except for the messy ONE PER WEEK scrawled on a piece of masking tape stuck to the side. Black market shit, stronger than anything offered legally, insanely expensive even with the deal he managed to cut with the guy he buys these from.

 

They're far better than the drugstore inhibitors he used to take, which were unreliable and didn't do much except diminish his scent. That was enough to keep his cover while him and Richie were together, but they were useless once they'd split and he didn't have Richie to help him through his heats anymore.

 

The suppressants take away his heats and his scent completely, and though it doesn't entirely get rid of the slick, it reduces it enough that he's not going to soak his boxers anymore every time he gets a boner. The only real downside is that the rest of his heightened senses have dulled nearly to nothing, the way they were before he manifested, but it's a small price to pay to be able to pass as a beta.

 

He puts the pill on his tongue, dry swallows, staring at himself in the foggy mirror, image distorted and blurred.

 

It's easy to let himself drift, flash back to all the times him and Richie stood here like this, side by side, brushing their teeth, elbowing each other, shoving to get the shower first, before the other could take all the hot water.

 

Back when Richie used to press his nose right up to Seth's neck, the only way he could get close enough to scent him with the inhibitors blocking the rest. Holding Seth's hips, nuzzling that spot where Seth's neck meets his shoulder, leaving hickeys where he wasn't allowed to bite.

 

Seth shakes off imaginary Richie's hands and wipes off the mirror. Ancient history, that's all it is.

 

Memories better left in the past.

 

\--

 

Richie and Vanessa are already seated at the table with Eddie by the time Seth emerges in the kitchen, still a little shower damp, dripping water on the lino as he helps himself to the orange juice.

 

"Took you long enough," Richie says, snotty kid brother voice out in full force. "Were you searching for Atlantis in there?"

 

Seth glares and looks to Vanessa for help, but she's hiding a smile behind her hand and looking between them in amusement, so he just heaves a melodramatic sigh and drops into one of the chairs surrounding the table.

 

"I see the daily late slips in high school were a real good use of resources, Seth," Eddie says drily. There's humour behind it, though, and a moment later he's pushing a stack of pancakes toward Seth. "Help yourself."

 

Seth grabs three of them and douses them in syrup, a habit he picked up a long time ago from Richie, who went through a phase of having eyes bigger than his stomach and would often leave half his plate for Seth to finish. Now Seth has trouble eating pancakes without them swimming in sticky sweet.

 

"Gross," Vanessa says, wrinkling her nose over the rim of her coffee cup. "You want some pancakes with that?"

 

"These two have a sweet tooth like I could never believe," Eddie says to Vanessa. "They'd go through ice cream ‘n' candy faster than I could buy ‘em."

 

"Hey, that was mostly Richie," Seth says, through a mouthful of pancake. "He's the one who gave himself three cavities eating all those gummy bears. I just have a _healthy appreciation_."

 

"I think all those grape popsicles you used to eat would beg to differ," Richie replies. "You even used to eat them in the middle of winter. Who wants a popsicle in the winter?"

 

"Yeah, because-" _I used to eat them just to tease you._ "I liked them," he finishes lamely, cheeks pinking, irritated that he fell into Richie's trap.

 

"I'm well aware," Richie says, with a small, sly smile.

 

Seth scowls at him. So _this_ is how it's gonna be.

 

"Never saw you complaining," he says coolly, stabbing another piece of pancake with his fork.

 

"Alright," Eddie rolls his eyes. "Quit the bickering, fun's over. Let's get down to business."

 

He gets up and motions for them to follow. Seth shoves the last of his pancakes in his mouth and trails into the living room after the others.

 

"I need you to go to Ganford, where there's a club called Pink Panther. It belongs to an _ex_ -colleague of mine who's using it as a front to launder money."

 

Eddie settles down in his big, overstuffed chair and points to the map of the club he's got spread out on the coffee table.

 

"This is where his safe is," Eddie continues, leaning forward to point at a big red circle on the map. "There's an envelope in there with a few things of mine that I'd like back."

 

"My colleague, Niko, he's going to be out of town that night on a drug deal in Missouri City. Whenever he's gone, he leaves his girlfriend Maria in charge. Around nine, she usually goes into the front with the DJs for about half an hour. This is your window."

 

Eddie points to a pencilled in hallway lined with dots, each denoting a separate door. "I have a guy on the inside, Antonio, he's going to let you into the back here."

 

They nod, and Seth sits back on the couch, absorbing all the information. He looks over at Vanessa, still leaned forward, her attention rapt on Eddie.

 

"I've already briefed Richard on the specifics, so he will explain the gameplan to both of you. He'll also be taking point this time," Eddie says, ignoring Seth's incredulous whine at being sidelined as backup. "Seth, you'll watch his back. Vanessa, you'll be on backup duty and driving getaway."

 

Seth doesn't even have to look at Richie to know he's smirking like he won the fucking lottery.

 

"Now get going, I want you to have plenty of time to familiarize yourselves with the area before tomorrow night."

 

They finish packing up around two that afternoon and get on the road by two thirty, driving the three-odd hours to Ganford.

 

\--

 

Seth has never felt awkward around Richie. Not ever.

 

Richie's always been there, for every screw up, every failure, every scraped knee and bad haircut. He's seen Seth at his absolute worst, knows every dark, twisted skeleton Seth has in his closet and yet he'd always chosen to stay, to remain a constant unbreakable pillar of strength for Seth to bash himself bloody against.

 

Seth had broken that connection when he'd left, when he'd put a whole year of space between them and tried to build a life that didn't involve Richie.

 

So it makes sense that it's become awkward now, with all three of them scattered around this motel room, no Eddie to break things up this time. But Seth doesn't like it, not one bit. He's not supposed to have to walk on eggshells around the one person who knows him better than he knows himself.

 

They got to the motel in Ganford around five that evening, and now they're finally packing up for the night, done going over the plans for tomorrow, rolling up the map and stowing the folders Eddie'd given them back in Richie's duffel.

 

"Just so we're all on the same page," Richie starts, as he shoves another thick folder into his bag. "Seth and I will go in through the front and get past Tony. Vanessa, there's a door in the back that we're going to be using for a quick exit. Seth and I will make it to the back office, unlock that door for you, and you'll bring me my tools. I crack the safe, we get out fast, we spend fifteen minutes in there altogether."

 

"Sure, yeah," Vanessa says. "Sounds solid to me."

 

"Can't believe you get to take point," Seth pouts, handing Richie another stray piece of paper. " _I'm_ the point man. I'm _always_ the point man."

 

"You also have a tendency to mouth off at people when you're in charge," Richie reminds him. "The name of this game is discretion, Seth, that's not exactly your strong suit."

 

"I can be discreet," mutters Seth. "Tell him, Vanessa, I'm totally discreet."

 

"Hey, I'm staying out of this," Vanessa says, from somewhere to Seth's right. "At least you're not on getaway. That's the most boring part of the job."

 

"It's sure going to be, with that attitude," Richie replies snidely. "How the fuck have you two been pulling off anything like this? Stop whining."

 

"Shut up, _Dick_."

 

"Oh, that's clever, Seth. I sure haven't heard that one before," Richie says drily. "By the way, middle school is calling, they want their insult back."

 

Seth bristles. "God, Richard, you can be such a-"

 

"I'll see you lovebirds bright and early," Richie interrupts, hauling his bag onto his shoulder and going over to the door, heading for his room, just beside theirs. "I'll be up by seven."

 

Seth doesn't see watch him go, but he hears the door shut with a sense of finality. Vanessa sighs and looks over at Seth from her spot cross-legged on the bed beside him. "So he's still pissed, huh?"

 

"Yeah," Seth says hollowly. "He's still pissed."

 

Vanessa leans in and gives him a gentle kiss on the cheek, big green eyes full of sympathy. "He probably just needs some time to figure out how to swallow his pride."

 

"I don't know," Seth sighs. "When Richie holds a grudge, he _holds a grudge_. Maybe what I said to him really was unforgivable."

 

Her brows draw together. "Is this going to affect tomorrow night?"

 

"No. He's a professional, and he wants the money. He's not going to fuck this up over a stupid fight."

 

She doesn't look convinced.

 

"I trust him, V. I know what Richie's like. He loves this more than anything. He _lives_ for it. He'll do fine."

 

"Okay, Seth. I believe you."

 

\--

 

They get to Pink Panther the next night a little early, around fifteen to nine, just shy of their window of opportunity so they have the time to scope out the place.

 

It turns out to be a hole in the wall if Seth's ever seen one. It's hidden in the back part of town, on the edge where suburbia meets the city, hidden under a laundromat with a cracked window and a neon flashing ‘open' sign. The stairs leading down to the nondescript entryway are cracked and crumbling.

 

But once they're inside, it's like a whole different world. The decor is modern, all blocky shapes and neon against dark, black painted brick walls. The music is loud, almost oppressive, a pulsing beat that seems to travel up Seth's body from the soles of his feet all the way to his scalp.

 

"Got your balls on?" Richie says, pitched near to a shout just to be heard over the music.

 

"Screwed on tight."

 

They melt into the crowd, avoiding sweaty, writhing bodies and wandering hands as Richie clears a path.

 

They push through the double doors that lead to the bathrooms, thankful for the way they muffle the music on the main floor once they've swung shut. It's nearly empty here, a few small groups of people huddled around the bathrooms and a couple making out in a corner but nobody to notice them slip through the unguarded, curtain covered doorway that leads to the entrance to the network of tunnels underneath this place.

 

The door isn't far down the hall, and someone's standing in front of it. But the closer they get, the less it looks like the picture Eddie had shown them of Antonio, until they're standing directly in front of the man and realize that _this isn't him_.

 

He's tall, even taller than Richie, bald and built like a tank, bare arms covered in whorls of tribal style tattoos. He's an alpha too, seemingly unconcerned with hiding the telltale musk of his scent, which washes over Seth in a cloying, vaguely unpleasant cloud. For once he's thankful for his decreased sense of smell, otherwise this would be near-unbearable.

 

"You ain't supposed to be back here," Tall, Tattooed, and Huge says, scowling down at them. "If you're lookin' for the bathrooms, they're back that way."

 

He points back in the direction they came from.

 

"If you're lookin' for anything else, I suggest you look elsewhere before I rearrange those pretty faces of yours, _gringos_."

 

"Hey, easy," Seth says, holding up his hands. "We're just looking for Antonio."

 

Tattoos squints at them both cautiously. "He had to step out, he'll be back soon. What business you got with him?"

 

"We're old friends of his," Richie replies. "Michael Fontane and Sonny Bergamo," he adds, thumbing in Seth's direction when he says, ‘Sonny.'

 

Tattoos cracks a crooked smile. "Michael and Sonny. Like the movies."

 

Richie beams. He looks inordinately proud that someone understands the reference, the geek.

 

"Alright, well, I'll watch you until Tony's back. If you're tryin' to play me…" Tattoos trails off, but the motion of his fingers to the gun at his belt sends the message crystal clear. "Me ‘n' Tony ain't kind to liars."

 

Seth offers up an indulgent smile. "Wouldn't dream of it."

 

He looks at his watch, trying to make the movement seem casual. Fuck, they're already five minutes behind schedule, and who the hell knows when Antonio's finally going to make an appearance.

 

"Hey, so what's with the ink you got on your arm?" Tattoos asks, after a minute or so of the special kind of awkward silence that only a borderline hostage situation can create.

 

Seth looks down and realizes his sleeve must have ridden up at some point, probably when they were fighting through the crowd. He tugs it down again. "It's nothing," he says. "Nothing special."

 

"Every piece of ink's got a story. _"_

 

"Well, this one doesn't," Seth says tightly. Maybe he's a little more forceful than necessary, but he's not about to bother spilling his life story to this jackoff who'd waste no time putting a bullet in his skull if he knew what they're actually here for.

 

"You got that in New Orleans, didn't you?" Richie says innocently, ignoring Seth's venomous glare. "You were totally wasted."

 

Tattoos lets out a guffaw. "Now I see why you don't wanna talk about it. I understand the regret all too well, _amigo_." He holds out his arm, turned up to reveal initials on his forearm, surrounded by loopy patterns.

 

"She got pregnant, and left me when she found out. Said an alpha ain't father material, can you believe it?" he snorts, dropping his arm back to his side. "Trust me, it's never worth it to get someone else inked into your skin."

 

Against his better judgement, Seth feels a pang of sympathy for the guy. After all, Seth knows exactly what it's like to be judged based on how he presents. He rubs his own arm, through his sleeve, feeling the presence of his tattoo like a brand, seared into his flesh.

 

"I guess you could say I got it for someone I used to know," Seth says, more to Richie than Tattoos. Richie looks down at him, unreadable, squaring his jaw before he looks away again.

 

A second later a shadow darkens the little strip of light streaming in underneath the hem of the thick curtain at the doorway to the hall.

 

Seth's never been so thankful to see another human being than he is to see Antonio. Antonio's almost as big as Tattoos, but he's got more lean muscle and less weight around the middle.

 

"Anybody want to explain to me what's going on here?" Antonio asks irritably, scanning the scene.

 

"Sonny and Michael," Seth says, desperately trying to speak to Antonio through his eyes or his _mind_ , anything to clue him in. "Your _friends_ , remember? You're expecting us?"

 

Antonio pulls a creased piece of paper out of his pocket and unfolds it, scanning the contents for a second before realization dawns. "Of course," he says, holding out a hand for Seth to shake. "Enzo, I'll take it from here," he says, waving at Tattoos.

 

Enzo gives them one last suspicious look. "Alright, man."

 

Once Enzo has disappeared, they round on Antonio. "You're late, where the fuck were you?" Richie hisses. "We're _so_ far behind schedule now."

 

Antonio leans in to speak to them, voice barely above a whisper. "Maria's on the warpath tonight, we got some unexpected high profile clients in. I couldn't say no."

 

"What the fuck do you mean, you can't say no?" Seth asks. "You just say it. N-o. Easy."

 

"Yeah, maybe that would work for you, but I ain't done with these people after tonight. I can't just go blowing my cover for you assholes," Antonio replies in exasperation. "Even if you are _jefe's_ boys."

 

Richie sighs in frustration. "Alright, whatever, can you get us in or not? We're burning time here, man."

 

Antonio purses his lips, but nods, turning to pull a ring of keys out of his pocket. He flips through the ring until he finds a big gold one and unlocks the door behind him. "Once you're through this door, you're in your own," he says, swinging the door open with one huge hand and stepping aside to let them through. "If anyone sees you, I ain't saving your sorry asses."

 

Out of the corner of his eye Seth sees Antonio hand Richie a key, which he slips into his jacket. Seth follows after Richie, down a flight of stairs and into a big, concrete hallway lit by fluorescent bulbs.

 

"Well this sucks," Seth mutters once they're out of earshot of Antonio. "And I still can't believe you got to be Pacino too."

 

"Hey, Michael was the youngest," Richie sniffs. " _And_ he was the boss."

 

"By the end of the movie. Sonny was the boss first."

 

"Maybe we're in the second movie."

 

"If we were in the second movie, I'd be dead," Seth complains.

 

Richie shoots him an unimpressed look. "At least I didn't pick Fredo for you, how about that?"

 

They turn another corner and finally find what they're looking for, a big door at the very end of a hall that says EMPLOYEES ONLY in huge block letters on the front.

 

Richie tugs Antonio's key out of his pocket and fiddles with the lock. At first it sticks, and Seth starts to look around nervously the longer they're stuck out here, but eventually Richie manages to work the stuck door open with a hard shove of his shoulder.

 

"You ready?" Richie asks.

 

"Born ready."

 

\--

 

They meet Vanessa at the back door, where she's already been waiting. Seth punches in the code Eddie had given them to disarm the alarm, disengages the lock and opens up the door.

 

"What the hell happened to you?" Vanessa says, keeping her voice low. "You alright?"

 

"Long story," Seth says curtly. "Plans changed a little, we adapted."

 

Her brows draw together in concern and she reaches out to touch his hand. "Okay, well get going. You're behind schedule."

 

"We know," Richie huffs, taking his kit from her and turning to head back down the stairs. "Hurry up, Seth."

 

Seth shuts the exit door, but doesn't set the alarm again in case they need to make a quick, quiet escape.

 

When they get back to Niko's office Richie tries the door, on the off chance they're about to get extraordinarily lucky, but it holds firm, so Richie pulls out his gear and makes quick work of the three locks. He opens the door carefully, as Seth pulls out his handgun, Seth watching Richie's back as he heads inside the room, flicking on the light.

 

The overhead fluorescents buzz to life, dim and barely enough to see by. The room is empty, as expected, small and cramped. The only things inside are a big desk in the middle, and an overstuffed office chair.

 

The safe is supposed to be under the desk, and it's right where they expected. Richie kneels down and gets to work, while Seth turns to play lookout at the doorway.

 

The next few minutes are spent in tense silence, Seth watching for movement up and down the hallway while Richie works, squeezing his gun like a lifeline.

 

"So have you told her the truth yet?" Richie asks conversationally, as he sifts through tools in his bag. "With you on those sups now I would never be able to tell you're an omega if I didn't already know."

 

Seth's temper flares, and he grits his teeth to keep from spitting something he'll regret. "Don't know why that's your business."

 

"I guess it's not. You made that pretty fucking clear."

 

"What do you want from me, Richard? I'm sorry, okay, is that what you want to hear?"

 

Richie sighs. "Quit it with the innocent victim act, already. It's not cute."

 

"Can you quit being pissed that I dumped you?" Seth asks. "It's been a year, get the fuck over it."

 

Richie's eyes narrow. "I'm not pissed because you didn't want to be with me," he snaps. "I'm pissed because you disappeared overnight and went off the grid for three fucking months, you dickhole."

 

Seth looks over at him in surprise.

 

"I worried myself sick about you every fucking day, Seth. After three months of that I get to find out that you're living it up with some girl in Alabama from _Eddie?_ You don't even bother to tell me yourself?"

 

"It was supposed to be better," Seth mumbles, suddenly queasy. "Tear the band aid off quick. No bullshit."

 

Richie's expression goes stormy, and Seth's guts drop into his shoes. "It was selfish. That's all it was."

 

Maybe it had been selfish. Seth would be lying if he didn't admit that a part of him had known exactly how much it would hurt Richie to leave like that, no note, no goodbye. Just Seth and the Cougar, early in the morning, leaving behind everything he'd ever known.

 

"I couldn't be there anymore, after everything." Seth feels like he's in danger of splitting apart at the seams. "I was just doing what I thought was best for both of us."

 

Richie looks away, scrubs a hand over his face. Adjusts his glasses before glancing back over in Seth's direction. "Fuck, Seth."

 

The sick feeling in Seth's stomach deepens. "How much longer is this gonna take?" Seth asks, desperate to change the subject.

 

Richie goes silent, maybe for a minute or two before there's an audible click and Seth looks over to Richie to see him looking up over the top of the desk. "Got it," Richie says, dropping an envelope onto the desk and pushing it in Seth's direction.

 

A grin splits Seth's face at the victory in spite of his mood. He grabs the envelope off the table as Richie locks up the safe again and starts packing his things.

 

Seth's so high on their success that he almost misses the squeak of a door somewhere down the hallway. The acoustics down here are so strange he can hardly tell the direction, but now he knows he's definitely hearing footsteps tapping down the tile, getting louder with every step.

 

"Shit," Seth hisses, "Someone's coming."

 

Richie gets the safe shut and scrambles to his feet, bag in hand. "Let's go."

 

The adrenaline rush hits Seth like a hurricane as they shut the door behind them and make for the stairs that lead up to the side exit. The envelope under his arm is hefty enough that it's throwing off his balance as he rounds the corner where the stairs are and nearly slams right into Richie.

 

"Richard, what the-"

 

But then Richie's grabbing Seth's arm and dragging him in the opposite direction, and Seth looks up just in time to catch a glimpse of a woman standing at the top of the stairs, tall and blonde. Has to be Maria, nobody else would be down here except her.

 

_"Hey!"_ Maria screeches. A second later there's a bang that echoes through the hallway and an explosion of stone chips behind them and holy _fuck_ does this lady mean business.

 

"This way," Richie says, banking hard to the right down a hallway in the direction of the main dancefloor. Seth follows, hearing Maria's footsteps gaining on them clearly now, easy to detect with the loud click of her heels rebounding off the tiles.

 

Another gunshot rings out and hits the wall a few feet to Seth's left. "Can't we talk about this?" Seth yells in her direction, "what ever happened to southern hospitality?"

 

"Jesus, Seth," Richie pants in between heavy breaths as they burst through the door Antonio had let them through, now unguarded, and claw past the curtain in the doorway. "You have to antagonize her?"

 

"She's already trying to kill us!"

 

They spill through the double doors back onto the dancefloor and Richie's retort is swallowed up by the music. It's so loud that Seth's momentarily disoriented by it, all the moving, twisting bodies and the thump of the base. He fights through dancing couples, ignoring indignant yelps and making sure he doesn't lose Richie in the crowd, keeping his gaze locked to the back of Richie's head. Thankfully Richie's so tall that he's easy to spot, and it's not too difficult to keep track of him.

 

They break out of the throng and shove past the bouncers, out the door into the chilly autumn air. They practically trip up the stairs in their haste, Seth constantly looking over his shoulder for Maria, half expecting her to appear behind him like some kind of wraith. He feels like his heart is in danger of beating right out of his chest, adrenaline surging tidal wave fast as they run into the parking lot, ducking behind the first row of cars as cover on their way back to meet Vanessa.

 

There's no way Maria gave up, but maybe she lost their trail because there's no sign of her as they round the corner of the building and see the getaway car is right there, that ugly silver Toyota Eddie'd gotten for this job. Vanessa's at the wheel, looking almost bored until she catches sight of the both of them running like the hounds of Hell are at their heels.

 

"What the fuck happened?" Seth hears her exclaim faintly as they reach the car.

 

"Gogogo _go_ ," Richie yells as he wrenches the passenger door open and Seth goes for the back seat.

 

Seth's just about to dive in after him when a lightning bolt of pain explodes in his right side. He stumbles forward and whips his head around to see Maria about twenty feet away in front of their original exit, flanked by Enzo who looks about ready to burst a vein.

 

Her features are contorted into a snarl of anger as she pops off another shot, which misses Seth's midsection by inches and busts through the window instead, lodging somewhere in the cushion of the backseat. Seth's just frozen as she goes to reload, finally looking down at the hole in his suit jacket, welling blood darkening the edges.

 

There are hands on him now, gripping at his shirt. Richie and Vanessa are both yelling something but he can't focus on what they're saying, just ducks down and allows Richie to yank him onto the seat.

 

It probably all happens within the span of a few seconds but it may as well have lasted forever as far as Seth is concerned. Richie's grabbing the envelope from him and manhandling him into a sitting position as Vanessa floors it, and the last thing Seth sees before he passes out is the barrel of Maria's gun pointed right at him, glass shards exploding toward them as another bullet punches through the window.

 

\--

 

Seth's floating in a big, black sea. Everything seems muffled, a thousand miles away, fuzzy and indistinct like he's underwater. The pain creeps in slowly, building into an excruciating burn that feels like someone set all his nerve endings on fire.

 

Seth cranes his neck and sees Richie above him, glasses askew, a wild, unhinged look in his eyes. Then he looks down and sees Richie's pale hand on his side, rivulets of deep red pushing sluggishly through his fingers, staining Seth's suit jacket and Richie's pants and the ancient grimy upholstery.

 

He's still in the car, that much is obvious, and judging by the whine of the engine and the blur of lights passing outside they're moving fast, enough that Seth has to blink hard to keep from getting lightheaded again.

 

"Whatthefuck?" Seth mumbles, but the words all come out in an unintelligible rush, more like a groan than a coherent sentence. He's cold, thanks to the wind rushing in through the shattered window, and he tries to get closer to Richie, the warmth of his body pressed to Seth's back.

 

"Stay still," Richie hisses. "Just- just don't move, Seth, okay? You're gonna be alright. I'm gonna fix you."

 

It sounds more like Richie's trying to convince himself, so Seth feels around for Richie's knee and rests his palm there, gritting his teeth as another wave of pain shoots through his side at the movement. "I'm fine, buddy."

 

Richie makes a quiet noise and noses into the crook of Seth's neck, hugging him even tighter to his chest.

 

\--

 

The nicotine yellowed ceiling has twenty three water spots scattered across its surface. Seth should know, it's probably his tenth time counting them all in as many minutes.

 

Richie's face appears above him, haloed by the 40 watt motel bulb and the dim orange of a street light filtering through the curtains. He waves a hand in front of Seth's face.

 

"C'mon, numbnuts, sit up," Richie says, poking Seth's cheek. Seth groans and slaps at Richie's hand and makes a half hearted effort to move.

 

Richie purses his lips in annoyance and hauls Seth into a sitting position. "I told you not to drink so much," Richie scolds, dabbing at the congealing streaks of blood on Seth's skin with a damp piece of one of their old t-shirts.

 

"Hurts," Seth protests, as he closes his eyes and grits his teeth. Even through the liquor haze, he's pretty sure he can feel every little movement as Richie works.

 

"Lucky it didn't hit you anywhere important," says Richie. A second later there's a stunning shock of pain that makes Seth grunt and try to twist out of Richie's grip.

 

" _That_ felt important."

 

"Alright, drama queen, stay still," Richie snaps, as Seth tries to grab the tequila bottle. "You were better at this when we were kids."

 

Seth sticks out his tongue and reluctantly draws his hand back, mentally cursing Maria for firing the gun and the asshole who made the gun and the asshole who _invented_ the gun and ends up going so far up the chain that he's cursing God by the time Richie's finished with him.

 

When Richie leans away to grab the gauze, Seth takes the opportunity to prop himself up and take another hefty swallow of alcohol behind his back, relishing the burn down his throat.

 

Vanessa pads over to the bed from where she's been standing over at the window and rests her hand on Seth's. "Will he be okay?" she asks Richie, as if he really knows better than anyone else.

 

Richie shrugs and starts packing the wound, making Seth wince and hiss again. "It went straight through. Clean. It'll scar, but I think he'll heal fine."

 

Vanessa's fingers go tighter around Seth's anyway and he squeezes back absently.

 

The liquor is really starting to hit Seth now, and his head is beginning to loll forward because the rest of the world is spinning, tipping sideways in that uncomfortable way it does when he's _really_ drunk too much.

 

Once Richie's finally finished with the dressing, he gets up to dump the excess gauze and bloody rags in the trash.

 

"Richard," Seth mumbles. He hurts all over and his head is swimming and right now Richie smells _amazing_ , like strong, protective alpha who could take all of this away. Seth paws clumsily in his direction, tugging out of Vanessa's grip and trying to stand, nearly flopping right off the bed.

 

"Hey," Richie says gently. He catches Seth's wrists and holds him still. "Lay down, sleep this off. You're in for one hell of a hangover."

 

Seth doesn't want to sleep, not unless he's surrounded by that comforting alpha scent, but his eyelids are starting to droop and he's past the point of being able to argue.

 

He doesn't protest when Richie eases him onto his back, or when Vanessa arranges a blanket over him, just drifts into the beckoning lull of unconsciousness.

 

\--

 

_It's raining out. Normally that's Seth's least favorite type of weather, but right now he welcomes it, the cool wind the rain's brought along with it splitting the heat of the day._

 

_He's sitting on the porch swing with Richie, curled up with his head resting on Richie's shoulder, watching the water drizzle off the roof in streams onto the back steps, listening to the patter on the shingles above them._

 

_"You should do your homework, you know," Richie says, peering down at Seth's textbook, forgotten on the floorboards at their feet. "You can't graduate with me if you fail AP chemistry."_

 

_Seth shrugs. "We're gonna be master criminals, what the fuck do I need chemistry for?"_

 

_"You have to apply yourself," Richie sniffs. "Don't settle for mediocrity. We're not just some dumb assholes looking to get rich quick, we're the Gecko brothers. We're **artists**." _

 

_"I think you've been spending too much time in Mrs. Ortega's philosophy class."_

 

_"There's art in everything, brother." Richie turns to him, suddenly serious. "Life imitates art."_

 

_Seth shakes his head, smiling in amusement all the while._

 

_"Hey, speaking of art, I overheard someone in class saying Miranda Parker asked you out last week. Why didn't you tell me?"_

 

_Richie rolls his eyes. "Because I turned her down."_

 

_Seth gapes at him. Miranda is one of the prettiest girls in school; she has brown curly hair and soft brown eyes and legs for days._

 

_"What the hell, Richard?" Seth squawks. "Do you know how many guys would kill for that opportunity?"_

 

_"What's the point of wasting time on a girl I don't even like?" Richie asks disdainfully. "I have you."_

 

_Seth flushes. "That's different. I'm your brother, not your girlfriend."_

 

_"Oh, you're just my brother?" Richie hooks a finger in Seth's collar and tugs it down, revealing the bloom of red-purple-blue hickeys on his skin. "That why you're wearing my bruises all over you?"_

 

_Richie presses his fingertips against one, digging in until Seth hisses and jerks away._

 

_"I'm just saying," Seth mutters, rubbing at his shoulder. "It's not like we're gonna be like this forever."_

 

_"You aren't going to stop having heats any time soon." Richie cocks his head, looking at him quizzically. "You think you're just gonna wake up one day and **not** be an omega?"_

 

_Seth winces at the word. Omega._

 

_Dirty. Gross. Bitch male. Whore._

 

_It's the whispers in the locker rooms, the snatches of conversation behind the bleachers, that Ryan kid in tenth grade who got knocked up by his alpha during a heat and had to leave school._

 

_It's everything Seth used to think, before he'd turned out to be a card carrying member of the same club he'd always looked down upon. Seth's a breeder. That's what he's made for, popping out kids and being fucked._

 

_Seth chews his lip and looks out at the rain, slowed to a drip now, the grey clouds starting to brighten as the storm blows over._

 

_"I can hear you thinking," Richie says. "Stop it."_

 

_He seems to have picked up on Seth's discomfort, with that sixth sense he's always had for Seth's moods. He slings an arm around Seth and tugs him close, humming in contentment when Seth drops his head onto his shoulder again. Seth buries his face in Richie's neck, hiding away, inhaling that strong, alpha musk._

 

_What scares Seth the most is that there's a part of him, a tiny part, buried deep down in the dark, that's okay with what he is. That likes that feeling of being protected, owned, belonging to someone. That loves Richie's possessive streak and the way his hackles go up around other alphas, even though they don't have a clue what Seth is._

 

_He just wishes he didn't feel like everyone they pass on the street knows his secret, like every laugh is full of bad intent, like every smile hides knives behind it, ready to tear him to pieces, turn him in, take away this fragile thing he's managed to build._

 

_Maybe Richie doesn't care that he's an omega, maybe he even likes it, but Seth knows what he's marked for. What everyone else would think if they saw him the way Richie does, whimpering and desperate for everything he doesn't **want** to want._

 

_They'd see him as weak, a liability, unable to hold his own. Not fit for the world he was born into, of big money and running from the law and cowboy style shootouts, of dying young in a pretty girl's arms._

 

_He lifts his head, looks out at the shimmer of the grass, the roll of the clouds above. Richie noses at his cheek to get his attention, smudged glasses and lopsided smile, pointing out the spider's web at the corner of the porch overhang, intricately patterned, dewey with leftover rain._

 

_Seth spots the spider down below, at the base of the column the web is attached to, struggling to climb back up the damp wood. Eventually it manages, making it most of the way up before it seems to settle in a sun spot._

 

_Fuck other people. Fuck all of them. Fuck anybody who thinks he can't hold his own the same as anybody else._

 

_He is Seth motherfucking Gecko and he was born to be someone._

 

\--

 

When Seth comes to again it's dark out, he's far too warm, and he feels sort of like he's been hit by a truck.

 

Richie's sitting next to him on the bed, watching TV with the closed captioning on. He hasn't noticed that Seth's up yet, looking half asleep. Seth shifts and realizes Richie's hand is resting on his shoulder, his grip heavy.

 

Seth tries to move and instantly regrets it, head spinning with the remnants of all the booze he drank earlier, pain lancing up his side in a punishing jolt that slams him flat to the bed again.

 

He whines at the pain and wishes he was still asleep.

 

"Seth?" Richie asks in an urgent whisper. His hand leaves Seth's shoulder and goes to his forehead instead, his touch cool on Seth's skin. "You okay?"

 

"Too hot," Seth grimaces. "My everything hurts."

 

Richie makes a sympathetic noise and turns away momentarily to grab a glass of water and a couple pills off the nightstand. "Take these."

 

Seth squints at them, recognizing one as vicodin, and the other as one of his emergency inhibitors. He cocks his head.

 

"You're bleeding scent," Richie says, offering his hand out. "Not a lot, though. All the stress probably just threw your body out of whack."

 

"Where'd you even find these?"

 

"You forget how well I know you, brother," Richie says with a wry grin. "Top of your bag, stuck in between the lining."

 

"Know it all." Seth works himself into a sitting position and groans at the change in altitude, his head pounding in protest.

 

He takes the pills and settles back against the wall, shooting a quick glance at the clock, which tells him it's just past four in the morning. "Hey, what were you doing up, anyway? ‘S late."

 

Richie's gaze slides away before he answers. "Didn't feel like sleeping."

 

Seth blinks away his remaining grogginess and takes a better look at Richie, noting the state he's in - hair messy and tangled, dark circles under his eyes. He hasn't even changed his shirt, it's still the same one from earlier, dotted with dark splotches of Seth's blood.

 

He looks haunted.

 

"Richard," Seth says. "Go take a shower. At least get out of those fucking clothes."

 

"Not leaving you."

 

Richie says it simply, a statement that requires no argument. Seth looks at him pleadingly.

 

"I'll be fine for the two seconds it takes you to put on something else, come on."

 

Richie sits a long time before he finally slides off the bed and goes to dig through his duffel, yanking out the first thing he sees. It turns out to be one of Seth's shirts, probably mixed in with the laundry, an ancient worn one with the Batman symbol on the front.

 

It feels weirdly intimate, almost voyeuristic to watch Richie undress. Like Seth's ended up in a time warp where everything's the way it used to be, before Vanessa, when it was normal for Richie to just slide into bed with him and press his lips to Seth's neck, his chest to Seth's back.

 

Richie thumps back onto the mattress beside him, shoulder to shoulder, in boxers and that too small t-shirt, a worried expression on his face.

 

"Where's Vanessa?" Seth asks.

 

"My room. I told her to swap with me for tonight."

 

"I'm surprised she agreed to that."

 

Richie shrugs, sort of evasive. "We were supposed to sleep in shifts. I just never went to wake her."

 

Seth digests this, watching Richie watch him, fighting the rising urge to reach out and touch.

 

"You know, for a second I thought they'd really gotten you," Richie says quietly. "I thought you were about to bleed out and die with us pissed at each other."

 

Seth struggles to remember the conversation, to even remember why they'd be pissed at each other, his brain overworked and tired and too strung out for this. "‘M not mad at you," he finally musters. "You still mad at me?"

 

Richie lifts a hand and rests it on Seth's head, carding his fingers through Seth's short hair. "Not really," he replies. "But you scared the shit out of me."

 

"Sorry." Seth offers him a wry half smile. He brings his hand up to Richie's cheek, just letting it rest there, taking in the smooth feel of his skin. Richie leans into it, nuzzling Seth's palm like he's fucking starved for the contact.

 

Seth's not sure if it's him or Richie who moves first, but all of a sudden Richie's hand is pressed to the back of Seth's neck and Richie's lips are on his, tentative and gentle. There's no heat to it, it's just slack mouths and spit and the tips of Richie's fingers easing down to Seth's jaw, scritching over new stubble.

 

Richie's the one to break them apart, pulling away abruptly like Seth's suddenly turned molten, hot enough to burn. "I- Seth, we can't," he breathes, dropping his hands to Seth's shoulders and holding him where he is, preventing him from pressing forward again.

 

"Richard," Seth insists. The painkillers are definitely hitting him now, the pain in his side has waned to an ache and he feels like the good kind of floaty that would just get better if Richie'd get the fuck back here. He clutches at the front of Richie's shirt, trying to keep him right where he is, close and safe and comforting. "I want it."

 

"No," Richie says. He extricates himself from Seth's grip and rubs at his eyes, red rimmed with lack of sleep. "You don't want this. I know you don't."

 

"I _do_." Seth is swiftly growing fed up with this, just wants to kiss Richie again, but it's like they're miles apart now and Seth doesn't know how to cross that divide without antagonizing his side again, so he just sits there and sticks out his lower lip and watches Richie compose himself, drawing all the walls up again.

 

"I'll go get Vanessa," Richie mumbles.

 

" _Richie_ ," Seth repeats, but Richie waves him off and leaves without a backwards glance.

 

\--

 

In spite of everything, Richie stays.

 

At first it's just in case Niko's crew tries to retaliate, and to make sure Seth heals up properly, but then the weeks stretch into a month and they start picking up a few smaller jobs here and there for the extra cash, and somewhere along the way Seth stops bracing for the day that Richie's going to pack up and go.

 

It's going on two months now since the job at Pink Panther, and things are good, really good, despite how sideways that first job ended up going. Turns out Enzo had alerted Maria and they'd beaten the rest of the information out of Tony. Thankfully, Eddie'd had the foresight to be a little sketchy on the fine details with Tony, and they hadn't known enough to really get going until it was already too late.

 

With that mess firmly in their rearview, they're finally starting to make a name for themselves outside of Eddie's web of connections, Vanessa's turning out to be a wicked shot with a pistol, and they're building up a decent pile of savings for a rainy day.

 

It would be as close to perfect as it's ever been if Seth could just figure out how to forget about the kiss.

 

It's not that he's obsessing. Really, he's not.

 

(Okay, maybe he is a little.)

 

Richie hasn't mentioned it, and Seth hasn't brought it up, and even though the back of his throat burns and his stomach aches with guilt when he thinks of how close everything had gotten to the surface, how _close_ he came to fucking everything up all over again, that's not the part of this that's really bothering him.

 

No, the part that's been bothering him is the _way_ Richie'd kissed, so different than he used to, with far more finesse and confidence than Seth remembers him having.

 

Something about that sticks in Seth's craw, that lingering, persistent idea that someone else has been there. That Richie's not just his anymore, no longer the uncharted territory that only Seth's had the chance to map.

 

But that should be a good thing - that's what Seth wanted, them apart, no more living under Richie's shadow, separate lives for both of them, where Seth can be the beta he always _should_ have been, and Richie can be the alpha he always was.

 

Except somewhere along the way Richie's changed, and it's not just that he's gotten bigger, or stronger, or that he grew his hair out a little. It's far deeper than that.

 

He isn't always looking over his shoulder like Seth might disappear the second he isn't watching, and he doesn't pull his punches or treat Seth as though he's made of glass. He doesn't even get cagey around other alphas anymore.

 

He's turned into someone different, someone new, grown up in that blank stretch of time between the night Seth left and the day Seth and Vanessa showed up at Eddie's, looking for an easy score.

 

Seth desperately wants to know this brand new side of his brother, to find out what else has changed in the three hundred eighty-odd days they were apart.

 

So maybe that's why he's outside the motel room this morning, like he is most mornings these days. It's at least an hour earlier than Seth would normally have even considered being awake, but he can't seem to sleep in anymore.

 

He'd slept badly one night a few weeks ago and gotten up early to get some air, and was outside just in time to catch sight of a waifish beta girl slipping out of Richie's room. It was like getting punched in the gut, the force with which his suspicions had suddenly slid into place, confirming what he'd really already known.

 

That Richie's moved on, for real.

 

So maybe, ever since then, he's fallen into this habit of finding his way outside each morning to scowl at Richie's conquests, in search of some petty, private revenge. It feels better than forcing himself to stay in bed and ending up thinking about it instead, imagining impossibly beautiful girls who want to take Richie away, after Seth's only just gotten him back.

 

Today's girl has long black hair and she's short, barely stands tall enough to meet the tops of Richie's shoulders but he doesn't seem to mind having to bend so much to kiss her. Richie's never seen any of them off before, he usually seems to send them away before he showers, if they haven't left already, so this one seems special. Different, maybe.

 

She slips a piece of paper into Richie's hand, curling his fingers around it to make a fist, and she smiles up at him when they break apart.

 

Seth hates her. He hates everything about her, the too-perfect curls and the sweet curve of her lips and the bouncy way she walks off, like she's not ashamed at all of her one night stand. Like she's _proud_. Seth sort of wants her to look his way, so she'll see the stormy glare on his face, just so he can ruin her sunny fucking day, just a little bit. But she doesn't, she just gets into a beat up ‘96 Toyota and backs out of the lot.

 

When Seth looks back over to Richie, he's smoking in the doorway in cotton pyjama pants and a thin white t-shirt, watching her leave. He's not looking at Seth either, doesn't even seem like he knows he's there, and Seth wants to scream, throw a fucking fit because _he's right here_ , thirty feet away, and that always used to be enough for Richie.

 

"So _this_ is where you've been disappearing to," Vanessa says, startling Seth out of his mood with a gentle hand on his shoulder. "You suddenly decide to become a morning person?"

 

"Just haven't been sleeping too well."

 

Richie's finished his cigarette now, and he stubs it out in the ashtray on the porch next to the door. This time, he does look up at Seth, waves a tiny little half wave at him and Vanessa and mouths ‘ _ten minutes'_ before he disappears back inside.

 

"It's been nice to see you and Richie getting along," Vanessa says, crouching down on her haunches beside the ancient lawn chair Seth's sitting in. "I'm glad you finally patched things up."

 

For some reason, a pang of guilt floods through Seth as he looks over at her.

 

"Yeah, me too."

 

\--

 

They finally get on the road about mid-morning, a later start than usual, but right now the only plan is to head out to Little Rock and wait for instructions from Lars, a guy they've worked with on a few smaller jobs now.

 

Seth's still feeling antsy and restless after this morning, and it doesn't help that Richie and Vanessa have been sniping at each other all day, about everything from the spelling on road signs to how big a tip the waiter from the diner they ate breakfast at deserved.

 

The first couple weeks of working together, Richie and Vanessa had quickly shown themselves to be prone to butting heads, but lately it's gotten to the point where they argue more than they're civil, and it drives Seth up the wall even on a normal day.

 

"Can you two _zip it_ for five _goddamned_ seconds, please?"

 

"Seth-" Richie starts, but Seth cuts him off.

 

"What did I say, Richard?" Seth asks, holding up a finger. "Shut the fuck up. _Both_ of you."

 

Seth can't see Vanessa, but he hears her thump back into her seat with an audible huff. Richie glares but doesn't say anything else, just turns his attention to the window. Seth takes the opportunity to turn up the staticy classic rock station until it's too loud for any of them to talk over.

 

The next while passes in a slow crawl, Seth just watching the road roll by. This stretch of highway is almost totally devoid of life, besides the scrubby trees and the buzzards and the single dead tree they passed a few miles back that looked like a clawed hand pushing out of the ground.

 

All of a sudden, Seth's cell rings and he nearly leaps out of his seat. He fumbles for it and hits the answer button, cradling it between his ear and his shoulder and frantically twisting the radio dial to turn the music down.

 

"Yeah?"

 

Before he gets a reply, Richie snatches the phone away.

 

"Don't be a distracted driver, Seth," Richie scolds prissily, putting the phone to his own ear. "What's up?"

 

Seth bristles. "As if we've seen any other cars along here for hours," he mutters, narrowing his eyes in Richie's direction and surreptitiously correcting his drift over the middle line.

 

"Hey, if you want to drive into a ditch on your own time, that's your business, but leave us out of it," Richie says under his breath. Then he adds, "yeah, Eddie, I hear you."

 

"It's Eddie? Richie, give that to me," Seth snaps, pawing blindly at Richie, who's either managed to shrink himself into the little corner where the seat meets the door or gotten very good at dodging because Seth's just getting empty air.

 

"Pay attention to the road, assface, I'll explain everything later."

 

Richie listens a little while longer, not saying much besides the occasional 'mhmm' or 'okay'. Eventually he holds the phone up to Seth, close enough for him to hear Eddie's tinny voice saying, "Be good."

 

"Later," Seth says, just before the other end clicks off. "Everything okay?" Seth asks, turning to Richie.

 

"He wanted to know if we could detour to some town called Ashdale and pick up a package for him. He'll give us fifteen hundred for it."

 

Seth nods. "‘S fine. Vanessa, you okay with a pit stop?"

 

"Hey, as long as we're getting paid," Vanessa says, leaning forward to pat Seth on the shoulder over the back of the seat. "Fifteen hundred isn't bad for a pickup job."

 

"And he said we can just drop it off to some of his guys in Little Rock, so we'll only need to add an extra couple hours to the trip," adds Richie. "We'll be meeting up at a diner."

 

"Sounds good to me," says Seth. "Guess we should think about stopping for the night, it's getting dark."

 

"Probably not going to be much around here," Vanessa says, digging a road map out of her bag. "There's a town about twenty miles east if you want to try there for a place to stay."

 

\--

 

Tonight's motel is a shitty little eyesore called the Grande, and it's about as far from grand as you can get. Dilapidated outside, cracked white stucco inside, with a front door that barely locks and a shower that only spits out a trickle of icy cold.

 

When Seth sets the bags down inside, he's almost surprised that they don't stir up a dust cloud. The room smells musty, carries an undertone of decay under the industrial bleach and cheap air freshener.

 

"I can't believe we have to stay here tonight," Vanessa groans, dropping her duffel on the bed and sagging onto the mattress. "I feel like I'm at the beginning of a slasher movie."

 

"You say that about everywhere we stay that isn't a five star hotel," Seth says, looking out the window at the dark, imposing treeline. "Besides, we've had worse."

 

She sticks out her lower lip. "The lock doesn't even work."

 

"So you can push the dresser in front of it, problem solved," Richie says. "Besides, this place is deserted. Who's going to come after us, the local wildlife?"

 

"Oh, I don't know, maybe some crackhead?" she says, "or _Mike in room five_? _"_ she says, pointing to the name and room number scrawled on the wall beside the bed in blue pen. "Because that's not weird and creepy at all, or anything."

 

Richie sighs, rolling his sleeves up. "Seth and I are perfectly capable of taking care of who or whatever might try to get in here, in the _unlikely_ event that anything tries."

 

"Really? What if they have a gun? You two don't exactly have a good track record of dealing with firearms."

 

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" Richie snaps.

 

God _damnit_.

 

"I'm going to the vending machine," Seth says loudly, for as much good as it'll do when they're already raising their voices.

 

By the time he's back with a bag of Fritos and a coke Vanessa and Richie are fully embroiled in yet another argument.

 

Seth should really break this up, but stepping into one of these is always like trying to navigate through a minefield and he's not prepared to handle that tonight. Instead he sits down in the rickety plastic chair just outside the door and pops the tab on his coke, and waits for this to work itself out.

 

It must be another five minutes before he hears a resounding slam, and a second later the front door opens and it's Richie standing beside him, lighting up a cigarette.

 

"Why are you such an asshole?" Seth glares up at Richie.

 

"You saw, she started it."

 

"I don't care who started it. I thought you grew out of being a brat when we were five," Seth says, standing up to peer past Richie into the room. The bathroom door is closed now, dim light spilling out underneath the crack and Seth figures the slam was probably the door.

 

When Vanessa emerges from the bathroom again her hair is pulled back in a messy ponytail. She hesitates when she looks between them, a strange look on her face.

 

"I'm going out," she says, voice stilted, anger stiffening the set of her shoulders.

 

Seth steps inside, moving to go to her but she pins him with a glare. "Vanessa, c'mon," he protests. "Richie didn't mean it."

 

She shifts her gaze to Richie, leaned there against the doorway in stubborn silence. Seth shoots Richie a wide eyed, insistent look but he doesn't say anything, just shrugs and tilts his head out toward the parking lot like it's suddenly the most interesting thing around.

 

Vanessa's lips thin into a line. "I'll be back later," she mutters, shoving past Richie and out into the lot.

 

"Really?" Seth snaps, once he hears the Cougar rumble and realizes that yeah, she's actually serious this time. "All you had to do was apologize."

 

"She was wrong," Richie says with a casual tilt of his head. "You want me to tell her she's right?"

 

Seth sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose between two fingers. "I want you to stop arguing over petty bullshit. Jesus, Richard, what the fuck's gotten into you lately?"

 

"Nothing," Richie says testily, tapping ash onto the front step. "Everything's fine."

 

"You picked a fight with her last week over a game of blackjack. You were playing for _pennies_."

 

Richie sighs and sags against the doorframe, letting his skull thunk back against it as he looks up.

 

"It's nothing, I'll deal with it." Richie pauses to take another drag off his smoke, exhaling a cloud of grey.

 

"That's what you said last time this happened, and _here we are again."_

 

"I know," Richie snaps. "I'm trying, okay? It's not like I wake up in the morning thinking up new ways to be a dick to your wife."

 

"Then what the fuck is your damage?"

 

Richie throws up his hands. "Sometimes people just don't get along, Seth," he says. "The real world isn't like preschool where you can sit everyone down in a circle and sing kumbaya and suddenly everybody likes each other. It doesn't work like that and it's never going to."

 

"Wow, the real world _isn't_ preschool? You could have fooled me with the way you've been acting," Seth sneers. "You can be civil and not have to like each other."

 

"What if I can't? You gonna pack your bags and leave again?" Richie spits.

 

That one stings, pulling at the wound that's only just started to scab over. "That's not fair," Seth says, voice coming out smaller, quieter than he'd intended.

 

"Life isn't fair, brother," Richie says, "I thought you of all people would have realized that by now."

 

Seth looks down at the floor and doesn't answer.

 

"I'm going out, don't wait up," Richie adds, and stubs out his cigarette.

 

\--

 

That evening, once Vanessa's cooled off and come back and Richie's out doing God knows what, Seth is still stewing over his earlier conversation with Richie. Richie always had a way of being prickly with people, but this thing with Vanessa is on a whole other level, and Seth doesn't understand it at all.

 

What the fuck is it? Couldn't be a rut, he'd have said something or already worked it out by now if it was. Maybe he's fucked up about a girl and he's taking it out on Vanessa? No, that's not his style.

 

Seth's still mulling it over when Vanessa emerges from the bathroom in a cloud of flowery, girly smells, wearing a tank top and no bra and the tiny shorts she sleeps in. She flops onto the bed beside Seth and rests her head on his shoulder, splaying her arm out across his chest. She looks so small like this, delicate and pretty, a flood of wavy black hair curling down over her shoulders.

 

"Are we ever going to be settled again?" Vanessa asks. She sounds glum. "I miss our place in Vegas, and I miss _us_. It's always you and Richie now, it's never just you and me anymore."

 

"It's just you and me right now," Seth points out. He draws his fingers up her forearm, absently rubbing the smooth skin. "It's just you and me most nights."

 

She makes a face. "That's not the same as coming home every night to a place that's ours. Fuck, Seth, do you even feel safe doing this? Doesn't it bother you that you got shot two months ago? You could have _died_. Do you even realize that?"

 

Her fingers skate across his belly, over to the scar on his side, half visible where his t-shirt's ridden up.

 

"Nothing near that bad has happened since then, and besides, the same thing could have happened to us running cons in Vegas. We pick the wrong mark and bang, someone tracks me down in an alley a week later. The world is never going to be a safe place for us."

 

Her face falls with every word out of his mouth.

 

"What if we got a house," she says slowly, "we could go legit, go to school, get real jobs, have a _family_. We could just do a couple more big jobs and cash out. We could leave all of this behind. You could get that bar in the Keys you always said you wanted."

 

She paints a pretty picture, green grass and a minivan and rows of identical, working class houses in a working class neighbourhood. No Richie, no Eddie, no adrenaline thrumming through their veins, no smell of gunpowder on their hands, no rumble of an engine under their feet, going places they've never been to.

 

_No Richie._

 

An apple pie suburban life. The American dream.

 

Seth hates it.

 

Vanessa sits up, wrapping her arms around her knees, reading his silence for what it is. "I guess I'm just sick of being on the road. Vegas was our home, don't you miss it at all?"

 

‘ _No_ ,' Seth realizes, with sudden, stunning clarity. ‘ _I don't_.'

 

"Sure I do," he says, refusing to meet her gaze. "But we have to put in the time now if we want to be sitting pretty later."

 

She nods, in quiet acceptance, resting her chin on her knees. "Can we at least visit soon, then? Stay for a week? Just the two of us?"

 

"Yeah, okay."

 

She pulls him in for a kiss, sweet and gentle. "I love you."

 

He feels a pull in his guts, toward her, a stir of affection and interest as he deepens the kiss, pressing her back into the bed. "Love you too," he replies, pointedly not dwelling on the fact that, for the first time, the picture perfect future he's been dreaming of isn't looking quite as rosy as it once did.

 

\--

 

_Seth's always had an affinity for dive bars. Maybe it's the vibe, or the clientele, or the way all the servers pretend to know his face - maybe it's just a combination of all of it together._

 

_So it's not such a big surprise that they end up at the Double Down to celebrate their first job well done. They only got a grand each, even though it was Richie who saved the whole thing by cracking the safe in half the time they'd expected him to, but it's still money and it's theirs and they earned it doing what they love._

 

_They're seated at a table near the back corner, Seth picking at a basket of nachos and watching Richie downing his second jack and coke, getting to that stage where he smiles a lot and laughs easy but can still hold a conversation if he needs to._

 

_Seth always likes seeing Richie like this, unguarded and happy, finally able to shed the weight he always seems to carry._

 

_"Two grand, brother," Richie says, a note of awe in his voice. "In one night. Just think about what we'll be making in a couple years."_

 

_"If we play our cards right, we could retire before thirty if we hit it big enough."_

 

_Richie grins at Seth and reaches across the table to steal one of his nachos. "We're gonna be wanted in every state."_

 

_"You sound way too excited about that," Seth chuckles._

 

_"What can I say?" Richie says, licking salt off his fingers. "I like notoriety."_

 

_Seth rolls his eyes playfully and scans the bar, only half looking for someone he might want to take home when he sees her. She's over by the pool table, drinking what looks like a Long Island iced tea, toying with her cue. She must feel his eyes because she looks over and smiles, short blonde hair just barely brushing her shoulders._

 

_"What d'you think of her?" Seth says. He points across the room and Richie follows his gaze to the girl, who sticks out her hip a little and winks in their direction. "Think she'd do us both?"_

 

_Richie shrugs, nonchalant like he couldn't care less. "Not interested."_

 

_"You do this every time we go out. Honestly, you don't need to find the Mona Lisa of women every time you're gonna get your dick wet."_

 

_"She's not my type," Richie says stubbornly. "Besides, you know I don't like to share."_

 

_Seth sighs in exasperation. "Alright, boy wonder, you win. I'm gonna order some taquitos, you want anything?"_

 

_Richie shakes his head and Seth goes up to the bar, only partly aware of Richie's gaze, glued to his back._

 

_The bar is busy, surrounded by people, and the kitchen is swamped by the time he puts in his order for a plate of taquitos and a Tom Collins, because why not, they're celebrating tonight._

 

_He takes a seat at the bar to wait for the order, zoned out staring at the scratched wood surface. Someone slides in beside him after a few minutes of waiting, and whoever it is is a little close for comfort but maybe there's just no room._

 

_"You got an alpha, baby?"_

 

_Seth freezes in his seat, fingers flexing into fists. That someone beside him is leaned close now, way too close, enough that Seth can feel a hot whuff of breath against his cheek._

 

_It's a guy, an alpha, and Seth doesn't know how he didn't pick up on the scent before - maybe just too overwhelmed by the food and the liquor - but now it's obvious, cloying and dark. Instinctively Seth recoils, wrinkling his nose. He hates the smell of alpha unless it's Richie._

 

_"Don't think my relationship status is any of your business," Seth grits out._

 

_Distantly, Seth wonders how this guy guessed, how he knew, if the fucking inhibitors aren't working again or if it's just dumb luck that he got close enough to catch Seth's weak scent, thanks to the clusterfuck around the bar._

 

_A hand drops to Seth's leg, tight gripped through his pants. "Pretty thing like you shouldn't be out all alone," the alpha says, sickeningly kind, as if he's doing Seth a favour by trying to pick him up._

 

_Seth jerks his leg away, moving to get off his stool but there's a crowd blocking his exit._

 

_"Listen, asshole," Seth says, jaw clenched. "I don't know what you think I am, but-"_

 

_The wandering hand is back, cupping his ass and that the last fucking **straw** , Seth doesn't give a shit if he's about to get himself banned from the entire city of New Orleans because he's going to go postal on this motherfucker._

 

_But before he can do anything, a chorus of gasps pick up around him and he whirls to see Richie with the muzzle of his gun pressed up solid to the man's temple. Richie's straightened to his full height, shoulders squared, with a look on his face that even scares Seth a little._

 

_"If I ever see you around my brother again, I will splatter your head all over these floorboards," Richie snarls. "You understand me?"_

 

_The other alpha pauses for a moment, looking between them like he's weighing his options, as if there's any way for him to save face at this point. Richie flicks the safety and puts his finger on the trigger and the guy's out of there, nearly knocking over a stand of souvenir postcards on his way out the door._

 

_Richie looks positively murderous as he surveys the crowd, a fierce curl to his lip. "Anybody else going to have a fucking problem?"_

 

_Seth glances across the room then and his gaze falls on the blonde from before with her cue loose in lax hands, expression caught between a mixture of fear and pity._

 

_Seth looks away and the voices start to rise like a tide as Richie grabs Seth by the arm and drags him out of the bar._

 

_"I was dealing with it, Richard!" Seth hisses, crowding Richie back in the direction of the Cougar, parked in an alley a block or two up the street. "What the fuck was that about?"_

 

_"He put his hands on you," Richie says, like that's just supposed to explain everything. He paws at Seth, like he's trying to replace the sting of the alpha's touch with his own._

 

_"I can handle myself," Seth snaps. "I don't need **you** to fight my battles for me." He yanks out of Richie's grip, rubbing at his arms, trying to rid himself of the lingering sensations of the other alpha's touch._

 

_"What, because I'm your alpha? Excuse me for not wanting to sit by and watch you get molested."_

 

_"You know fucking well that I can fight just as well as you."_

 

_A part of Seth wants to go to Richie right now and rub up against him, relish the affection, the touch of somebody he actually wants. A bigger part is still caught on the way Richie acted back there, like a goddamned dog with a favourite toy, stolen by a rival._

 

_The Cougar feels small, cramped when they get inside. Richie takes driver's seat before Seth can even bother fighting him on it, relegating Seth to shotgun. He feels like a scolded child in the bucket seat, leaning his head against the cold of the window glass._

 

_"What would you have done if I had wanted to go with him?" Seth asks, after they've pulled back onto the interstate._

 

_Richie looks over at Seth, knuckles white where he's gripping the wheel._

 

_"You didn't want to."_

 

_"But what if I did?"_

 

_Richie never gives him an answer._

 

\--

 

Seth's outside again that morning, up even earlier than usual, enough that the sun has just barely started to rise. Seth had woken up freezing, thanks to Vanessa having managed to burrito herself in the blankets to such an extent that he couldn't even begin to figure out how to get her out of them.

 

So he'd pulled on a sweatshirt and gone out into the chilly air, because if he's going to be cold he may as well do it on his own terms. And now he's just sitting here, counting license plates in the parking lot and picking at his half finished bag of Fritos from last night and debating whether or not this is a good time to clean the guns.

 

He's not really expecting to see anyone today, it had rained most of last night and usually it seems like people don't want to bother trekking through the rain just to get laid, especially not to a shithole like this, and isn't that a whole other level of fucked up that Seth's been doing this often enough to pick out patterns.

 

"Fuck," Seth snorts to himself, leaning back and tilting his head up to the dark grey sky.

 

And then he almost has a heart attack, because someone's _here_ , standing above him, a face he doesn't know and definitely wasn't prepared to see.

 

He lets out an undignified yelp and stands, backing away to put at least five feet between him and whoever the hell thinks it's funny to sneak up on people at six in the morning.

 

Seth's assailant is about his own height, olive skinned and dark haired, frame thin, wearing board shorts and a teal tank top like some Baywatch reject who thinks he's supposed to be on a beach in Cali instead of slumming it here in the middle of fucking nowhere. And to top it all off, he scents as an omega - omega males who aren't taking some kind of suppressant are notoriously uncommon.

 

"What're you doing out here?" the guy asks.

 

"What're _you_ doing here?" Seth shoots back, already irritated. He doesn't like getting snuck up on, and he doesn't like anything about this guy's attitude, either.

 

"Fucked that guy in 208," he says simply, pointing back in the direction of Richie's door. He says it like a challenge, like he's spoiling for a fight. Like he's used to getting shit for this and now he wears his rebellion like armor.

 

Seth couldn't give a flying fuck if this guy's screwed a hundred guys in every room of this motel, but the idea of Richie and this jackass rubs him the wrong way something fierce. It must be written all over his face, too, because the guy instantly goes into attack mode.

 

"You got a problem with that?" the guy asks. Seth hates that he's pretty, but of course he is, because they always are.

 

"Maybe."

 

"It's a free country." The guy's expression darkens. "I'll fuck who I want."

 

Seth's shoulders tighten and all of a sudden he's livid, flexing his fists just so he doesn't do something stupid.

 

They stare at each other, until realization spreads across the guy's face. He grins, mean and harsh. "You're jealous, aren't you normie?"

 

Normie? What the fuck is that supposed to-

 

"You can't give him what I can. Alphas and omegas are made for each other, you betas can't compete."

 

Seth is so angry he's literally seeing red spread across his vision. "First of all, padre, I'm not a-" he stops himself, before he can continue, because he's not about to out himself to some douche in a backwoods Kansas parking lot. "He's taken, and if you don't get the fuck out of here I'm gonna introduce your face to my _fist_ ," he spits.

 

This guy is unflappable. He just smirks. "Looks like you've got some issues to work out with your alpha then, _padre_ , ‘cause he didn't seem taken to me."

 

Seth is a millisecond away from decking him when a door creaks and Seth turns to see Richie looking at them both, squinting at the sunrise starting to peek over the horizon behind them. The guy gives Richie a jaunty wave before he aims his attention back on Seth again, lowering his voice. "He's a beast in bed though, I don't blame you for wanting him all to yourself."

 

And then he spins on his heel and he's walking away, and Seth is left standing there seething at his retreating back.

 

\--

 

They get going early, Seth pointedly staying quiet, the others doing nothing to engage him. Maybe his mood is too obvious, but with all the time Vanessa and Richie spend irritating the crap out of each other Seth figures he deserves a day to sulk too.

 

About two hours into the drive, the arrow on the fuel gauge is flirting with the little E on the panel, so they pull off at a dingy looking rest stop a couple minutes off the main road. Richie and Vanessa head into the store while Seth fills the tank, listening to the sound of metal pinging as the Cougar cools off.

 

Once he finishes up at the pump, he follows the others inside to sift through the merchandise for something to calm his fraying nerves.

 

It's surprisingly roomy for what basically amounts to a convenience store out in the ass end of nowhere. Wide aisles and high, thinly stocked shelves divide the interior, dimly lit by butter yellow bulbs and fading mid-afternoon sun.

 

The clerk is a tall, gawky twenty something with stringy hair and a smudged nametag that reads, ‘Tammy'. She looks up from the lotto ticket she's scratching and regards him with an uninterested stare that smacks of teenage rebellion as he passes the counter.

 

He's in the back of the shop by the candy when Richie comes up beside him.

 

"Okay, spill." Richie says, keeping his voice low, leaning against the shelf. "What the hell was that about in the parking lot this morning?"

 

"It was nothing," Seth says haughtily, too quick. "I'm just tired, leave it."

 

Richie raises his eyebrow, an obvious call of Seth's bluff. He squirms like a kid awaiting punishment under Richie's unreadable gaze.

 

"Okay, y'know what? That guy was a total asshole. What the fuck were you doing with him?"

 

"What do you think we were doing, having a slumber party? Come on, you know exactly what it was."

 

"Did you strike out with all the girls last night and get desperate?"

 

"No, he was just the first person who offered to suck my dick. It's not a complicated process, Seth," Richie says. "Why are you so concerned about this, anyway? I'm sure Vanessa was thrilled to get a whole night of you to herself."

 

"Because-" _Because I wanted to kick his fucking head in just for looking at you._ "We don't _do_ that shit, Richard, we don't sleep with _guys."_

 

It's a weak argument, and Richie picks up on it like a shark that just got a taste of blood in the water.

 

"You think he's the only other guy I've ever fucked? I'm not picky about what people have in their pants." His mouth curls into a crooked grin and his gaze flicks down the length of Seth's body and back up again. "Besides, it would be pretty hypocritical of you to have a problem with that. Or have you forgotten all those times you begged me to nail you to the nearest horizontal surface?"

 

" _We_ were different," Seth hisses, cheeks heating. "We were- we were convenient."

 

Richie looks unimpressed. "You could have gotten on sups and had any girl you wanted by the time we were in senior year, you know exactly what we were."

 

Seth's caught, a rat in a trap, stuck in the hole he's dug himself into. Backed into a corner.

 

"We weren't anything," Seth spits, lying through his teeth, but something in his tone makes Richie's confidence crack, the smug on his face fading.

 

"Are you two _done_ yet?" 

 

Seth startles and turns to see Vanessa, stomping up to them. "I've been waiting for you assholes to to pick out your snacks for ten minutes, it _cannot_ be this difficult to choose a bag of chips."

 

"Seth's being indecisive," Richie says snidely. "Aren't you, brother? I guess the choice between Cheetos and Lays is a harder one than you thought." He plucks a bag of sour gummy worms off the shelf and brushes past them both on his way up to the cash, and Seth forgets how breathing works for a second as he watches Richie go.

 

\--

 

Seth stays silent once they're on the road again, leaving Richie to read a paperback he must have picked up from the rack of bestsellers at the gas station. Vanessa's got the map spread out on the seat beside her, nursing a bottle of iced tea as she traces a finger over the paper.

It's quiet. Too quiet. Usually Seth enjoys any reprieve he can get from Richie and Vanessa's endless sniping at each other, but right now he craves it. At this point he'd take just about anything if it would distract him from the whirlwind of thoughts he's not supposed to have knocking around inside his head.

 

He'd been doing so well at dealing with this.

 

Okay, maybe that's going a bit far, but he's handling it and it's _okay_.

 

He's been compartmentalizing, stuffing everything down and stashing it away for a time (a time that'll probably never come) where it doesn't hurt so much to think about. He doesn't want to remember how gently Richie used to touch him, or the way they used to fuck, hard and desperate, snarling filth and impossible promises in each others' ears.

 

Those memories were locked away and that was fine, that was how this is supposed to work because Richie is Seth's past and Vanessa is his future. But Richie always has to fucking _push_ , because that's what he does, he finds weaknesses and he picks at them, needles and pulls and tugs until something comes undone and spills out and he gets to find out what's been inside this whole time.

 

Seth watches out of the corner of his eye as Richie plucks a gummy worm from the bag in the cupholder and chews on it distractedly, letting half of it hang out of his mouth as he flips to the next page in his book.

 

He's almost angry at Richie for being so calm, for being able to move past this so easy and go back to normal like that conversation twenty minutes ago didn't just blow everything wide open, for the way he's always dropping bombs and leaving Seth to pick up the pieces, over and over again.

 

"You're going to miss the turn," Vanessa says. Her voice is unusually soft, as if she's trying to soothe some jittery little animal.

 

"I'm handling it," Seth says curtly, crossing two lanes to get to the exit, a smoothly paved road that'll probably disappear into the same old cracked concrete of every one horse town they've ever been to as soon as they're out of sight of the interstate.

 

\--

 

They hit Ashdale early. They'd been anticipating bad traffic, maybe having to drive through the night to make it for nine tomorrow morning, but Vanessa found some backroads on the map that they hadn't seen before and managed to avoid all the detours they were expecting to take.

 

There's a place called the Moon River Inn about a half hour outside Ashdale, and they pull up to it just as the clock on the dash hits six. It's one storey of flat, ungainly architecture paired with weathered stucco walls and a row of those ubiquitous green plastic lawn chairs every dirty hole in the wall seems to have out front.

 

"I'll go get the rooms," Richie says, kicking the feeling back into his legs and heading into the main office.

 

Seth waits outside with Vanessa, watching the orange light of the sunset sink in the distance. She's leaning against him, stroking his forearm absently.

 

"Seth," she says. He looks at her, their eyes meeting past the thick curl of her lashes. "You'd tell me if there was anything going on with you, right?"

 

Seth's stomach takes up residence somewhere in his shoes. "Of course."

 

"That conversation earlier didn't look like one anybody would have over junk food," Vanessa says, tilting her head.

 

Seth presses two fingers to the bridge of his nose and sighs. "It's nothing. Richie's just being Richie, we're fine."

 

She squints at Seth, unconvinced. "You and Richard just have this- this _thing_. It's like you have some secret language that I can't even begin to understand."

 

"I've told you, we're just close," Seth hedges. "That's kind of what happens when you spend your entire life with someone."

 

Vanessa sighs. "How am I supposed to compete with that?"

 

"You're not supposed to compete with anything," Seth says, shifting his weight in abrupt discomfort. "You're my _wife_ , Vanessa. Richie's my brother. There's no comparison."

 

There's a long, pregnant pause.

 

"Is there really no comparison?" Vanessa finally asks, the question pointed and sharp.

 

He blanches, staring at her, panic rising along with the sudden, insane thought that she _knows_ , she knows _everything_ and--

 

"Shit," she says, and rubs her face with her hand. "God, that was shitty of me. I'm sorry. Fuck, I'm sorry. That would-"

 

"Forget it," Seth says, hoping she doesn't catch the judder in his voice or the way his fingers are shaking as he runs them through her hair. "It's fine, let's just forget it."

 

She doesn't answer, and before Seth can think of what to say to cut through the awkward silence, Richie's back and dropping a key into Seth's palm.

 

"We're over there," Richie says, pointing across the lot. "They had one room left. Two queens."

 

"Gr _eat,"_ Vanessa groans, pulling away from Seth to dig her bag out of the backseat. "Just what I wanted, being stuck in a room all night with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid."

 

Richie shoots a questioning glance at Seth, who just shrugs helplessly and pops the trunk.

 

\--

 

The room ends up being number six, tucked away at the back end of the place, bordering a whole lot of trees and scrubby bushes and nothing. Inside it's surprisingly not too bad, floor to ceiling paneling with an avocado green carpet and a bunny-eared TV off in the corner, across from the beds.

 

Vanessa spreads out on one of the beds, flat on her back, staring up that the ceiling. "I'm sick of motel rooms," she says flatly, glancing over at Seth. "They're so… impersonal."

 

"Why don't we go to that bar we passed on the way in? The one that's about ten minutes up the road?" Richie cuts in. "We'll have a few drinks and hustle the locals."

 

He offers Vanessa a rare smile, which she returns. "Okay."

 

\--

 

Either this group of guys is extraordinarily bad, or Vanessa's gotten extraordinarily good at pool when Seth wasn't looking because she is _murdering_ her competition, making shot after shot. It's looking like she's poised to win around a hundred and fifty bucks by the end of this game, so long as she keeps up her streak.

 

Seth's hanging back at the sidelines, finishing off Vanessa's forgotten rum and coke and dividing his attention between watching Richie, who's chatting up some girl over by the dartboard, and watching the crowd around Vanessa, gauging their reactions to her remarkable turnaround in skill.

 

It would be easy for them to go sour on her, but so far her ‘golly gee, did I do that?' innocent act seems to be working. Seth doesn't know if he's prouder of her than he is disgusted at all these morons being played like a goddamn orchestra.

 

"Hey, brother."

 

Seth looks over to see Richie, who must have snuck up while Seth was focused on the game. He's got dartboard girl with him, hanging off his arm and looking inordinately proud of herself. Seth squares his jaw and doesn't make eye contact with her, keeping his attention on Richie.

 

The girl seems to pick up on Seth's aura, because she hangs back and pouts her red smeared lips at him. She's either a beta, or she's on suppressants, because Seth can't get a read on her beyond faint, fruity perfume.

 

"Can you and Vanessa survive the night without me?" Richie asks, voice pitched to that easy drawl he falls into when he's tripped just slightly past that threshold of ‘drunk too much.' "Liv and I were gonna go back to her place."

 

Liv giggles up at him and Seth has to struggle to keep his face straight against the sneer threatening at the corners of his mouth.

 

"Not sure that's such a good idea," Seth says. "We have to be up early."

 

Vanessa overhears from where she's standing a few feet away, waiting on her opponent to finish his turn. "What are you talking about, Seth? The meeting isn't until nine tomorrow, he's got plenty of time."

 

She's right, there is plenty of time, and maybe Seth's just being a little vindictive. Maybe he's still fucked up by his shitstorm of a day and wants to ruin Richie's too. So what? People cockblock each other all the time.

 

It's not like it means anything.

 

Seth glances over at Richie, their eyes meeting.

 

Something passes between them, understanding, maybe, although Seth isn't sure who's understanding who as Richie slowly turns to Liv.

 

"I'm gonna have to take a raincheck," he says to her.

 

Liv's syrupy sweet attitude drops and she huffs, peeling herself away from Richie. "I don't _do_ rainchecks."

 

"Alright," Richie shrugs, nonplussed. "Your loss."

 

Liv's face scrunches up in a glare. "You're a jerk, Michael."

 

Then she spins on her heel and stalks away, back in the direction of the dartboard in the corner.

 

"Michael?" Seth asks, bemused. "I thought we vowed to retire those names."

 

"Who doesn't want to imagine they're Michael Corleone while they're banging chicks?" Richie grins, throwing a casual arm around Seth's shoulders and hauling him into an awkward kind of hug. "Really, you should try it some time, it's a total confidence booster."

 

Seth snickers and leans into him. "You're such a fucking geek, Richard."

 

"You struck out?" Vanessa asks Richie, coming up to them once she's finished her turn. "She seemed like a sure thing, what happened?"

 

"Decided she wasn't my type," Richie replies easily. His arm slides away from Seth, dropping back to his side but sticking close, brushing Seth's sleeve.

 

Something in Vanessa's eyes seems to flicker, then, a blink-and-you-miss-it dullness that's gone so quickly Seth questions whether he even saw it at all.

 

"You guys want to get back soon?" she asks. "I'm about done here."

 

Seth looks over at the scowl on the man she's duped and figures she's probably got the right idea.

 

"Yeah, alright," Richie says.

 

"Five minutes," Vanessa replies, and goes to set up her shot.

 

\--

 

_Seth had always considered the worst moment of his life to be the moment he'd come to outside the inferno that his childhood home had become, with Richie's arms tight around him as he coughed so hard his entire body shook._

 

_He remembers his eyes stinging, his chest hurting, and being paralyzed with the knowledge that everything was changing. That everything was different now, and it was never going to be the same ever again._

 

_This moment, right here in Eddie's kitchen, Richie standing across from him with his hands planted on the table they've eaten countless breakfasts at, might just top that terrible night when they were nine._

 

_Because he'd only lost his home and his father, then. He'd still had Richie. He'd always had Richie._

 

_But now he's about to lose Richie too._

 

_"I told you, Richard, you can't just go around drawing attention to us," Seth says. "At least in New Orleans nobody knew us by our real names."_

 

_Richie groans, a hand on his face, like he's heard this all before and he's already fed up. "Where the fuck did this obsession with rules come from?" he snaps. "Since when have you ever cared what people think of us?"_

 

_"Maybe you should start caring more, Richard, people talk."_

 

_"We weren't on a job, nobody knew who we were, I don't see why it matters if they thought we were mated or not."_

 

_"You'll regret it when everyone figures out that Ray Gecko sired an **omega**." The self loathing hits when Seth spits the word, in a nauseating wave. "You think anybody's going to trust the Gecko brothers if they figure out what I am? What **we** are?" _

 

_"Seth, just fucking **listen** -"_

 

_"I can't do this anymore," Seth says, and Richie flinches back like he's been slapped._

 

_There's a too long stretch of silence, where they both just stare at each other, Seth quaking a little. He hopes it doesn't show._

 

_"I guess that's it, then," says Richie, slowly._

 

_The side of Seth that loves everything he has with Richie, **craves** the attention and the sex and the raw intensity of what they feel for each other claws its way to the surface in a rush of cold that seeps into his guts, sets in like a panic threatening at the edges of his thoughts. He forces it back, stomps it down again. _

 

_Richie's never going to change. He's always going to be an alpha, and Seth will always be an omega to him, something to be kept and protected, a prize to be won._

 

_Not a partner. Not an equal._

 

_"Guess it is," Seth replies._

 

_Richie sort of shies away at that, like a wounded animal, hurt plain on his face. "Do you really not want this?" he asks, in a small voice, painfully quiet. "Us?"_

 

_Seth breathes deep because every fibre of his being is screaming for him to go to Richie, to fix this, make it right. It feels almost like a physical effort when he finally gets his throat to work._

 

_"No. I don't," he says, and watches Richie crumble._

 

\--

 

The Ashdale Community Diner's old. Apparently it was built in the 1800s, refurbished in the fifties and left to wither into the dusty little hole in the wall it is now. Seth knows this because he's well into his fifth reading of the yellowed newspaper clipping mounted on the wall to his right.

 

They've been here for two hours now, waiting on the guy they're supposed to be meeting - some friend of a friend of Eddie's named Carlos. It's easy money, but the waiting has Seth restless, eager to be going somewhere, doing something other than just _sitting_.

 

They've already eaten their meals, already even had seconds in Richie's case, and dessert because he insisted on trying the goddamned lemon meringue pie and then offloaded it onto Seth when he decided that there was too much filling and not enough meringue - so in conclusion, Seth is already done with this day and it's barely even begun.

 

"How long do we have to wait here until we can decide this guy's a no-show?" Seth asks. "‘Cause the longer we're in here, the less I care about making five hundred bucks."

 

"Five hundred each," Richie corrects. "Fifteen hundred for doing almost nothing is a good deal, brother."

 

Vanessa nods. "I'm sure he'll be here soon."

 

Seth groans and lets his head fall back against the cushion of his booth seat. "Fuck, this sucks."

 

"Crap, I'm getting a phone call," Vanessa says, tugging her buzzing cell out of her purse. "I gotta take this, be right back."

 

Seth busies himself with shredding the edges of his menu and picking at the soggy home fries on his plate.

 

"Anything?" He asks Richie, after five minutes of silence.

 

Richie shakes his head. "Nada."

 

Seth is beginning to seriously consider the merits of faking his own death just to get out of this fucking diner when Vanessa gets back, her face ashen.

 

"Vanessa?" Seth asks, scooting over to let her back into her seat. "What's wrong? Is everything okay?"

 

She drops her head onto the table. "No," she says, muffled by the tabletop. "Val got picked up by the cops last night on prostitution charges."

 

"Who?" Richie asks.

 

"My sister, Valerie." Vanessa straightens up again and places a hand on her forehead, sagging forward into her palm like somebody just dumped the weight of the entire world onto her shoulders.

 

Seth exchanges a look with Richie, who shrugs uncomfortably and looks back out to the parking lot, presumably watching for Carlos.

 

"Okay, why does this involve you?" Seth's never met Vanessa's sister, and doesn't know much about her beyond the fact that she's in college and is involved in a whole lot of shit someone her age shouldn't be. Vanessa rarely talks about her, and Seth never asks - it's always seemed like a sore spot.

 

"She needs me to bail her out."

 

"I'm sure she'll be fine for a couple days, V."

 

"The longer she's in there, the higher the risk of my parents finding out."

 

"Maybe that's a good thing. She's eighteen, she needs an actual authority figure, not someone who's going to clean up every mess she gets herself into."

 

"You don't know my parents like I do, Seth," snaps Vanessa. "They'll cut her off for sure, and that's the last thing she needs."

 

Seth sighs. "So what are you going to do?"

 

"She's in Lafayette, that's only around eight hours away from here. I can get there by tonight easy."

 

"Vanessa-"

 

"If you were in my position, and this was Richie instead, you'd already be on the interstate and you know it."

 

Seth flicks his eyes away, unwilling to concede the point.

 

Vanessa turns to him. "You could come along with me. I'm sure Richie can handle this himself."

 

Richie looks up at the mention of his name, looking like he'd rather melt into the ground than be anywhere near here right now.

 

"I'm not letting him go into this without backup," Seth says. "We don't know anything about Carlos, I'm not just going to leave Richie on his own."

 

"Richie's a big boy, Seth, he'll be fine," Vanessa says. "You used to do pickup jobs like this solo all the time, didn't you?"

 

"Yeah, we've done them solo with people we _trust_ , not total strangers."

 

She crosses her arms over her chest.

 

"What's the point in me going with you anyway?" Seth adds, in exasperation.

 

Vanessa's brows draw together into a scowl. "Keep me company. Meet my sister. You know, _husband_ stuff."

 

"This _really_ isn't the time for that."

 

"It's never the time for it, is it?" Vanessa hisses. "We're always busy doing _something._ Were you really even planning to go back to Vegas with me?"

 

There's a screech of a chair on tile and Seth looks up to see Richie standing.

 

"I'm gonna go have a smoke," Richie says. "Give you guys some… privacy."

 

Seth enviously watches him leave, sighing deep once Richie's out of earshot.

 

"Yeah, Vanessa, I _was_ planning to go to Vegas with you next time we get a break. But I'm not leaving Richie to do this on his own. If you have to bail out your sister, you can do that yourself."

 

"Whatever." Vanessa rests her chin on her fist and doesn't look at him. "Then at least come and help me pick out a car."

 

\--

 

Vanessa chooses a dark green Oldsmobile from the plaza parking lot down the street. It's a big lot, full for a smalltown plaza, and this car is tucked away in the back, covered in leaves like it's been there a while.

 

Having something to do with her hands seems to have calmed her down some, and she's silent as she works while Seth keeps lookout for anyone who might give a shit about what they're doing.

 

Thankfully, they seem to be on a lucky streak because nobody comes by before she's got the engine going. She gets out triumphantly and punches him lightly in the shoulder.

 

"I'm going to get my stuff from the Cougar."

 

Seth waits by the car until she's back, watching the clouds move in the stormy grey sky. When she gets back she tosses her purse into the passenger seat and comes up beside him, following his gaze.

 

"Don't you need a change of clothes?" Seth asks.

 

"I'll drop by the motel and pick up a few things before I go."

 

Seth nods absently, feeling the uncomfortable tension between them grow the longer they stand here.

 

"What're you and Richard gonna do tonight?" Vanessa asks innocently, an uncomfortable edge to the sentence that makes Seth want to cringe away from her.

 

"Dunno." Seth chews his lip, doesn't look at her. "He'll probably go get laid."

 

"Oh, really?" Vanessa asks, rounding on him like a predator sizing up her prey. "Get laid like he got laid last night?"

 

And _there it is_.

 

Seth glares at her. "Okay, first of all? He was drunk off his ass. And second, I'm not just letting him walk off with some - some _harpy_ who could have God knows what stashed back at her house. In case you hadn't noticed, this isn't civilization, this is rural Oklahoma where people disappear all the fucking time."

 

"It's always excuses with you when it comes to him, isn't it? He's twenty five, Seth, he's a grown ass adult and he doesn't need his big brother to hold his hand every time he has to make a decision."

 

Seth's temper flares, white hot. "What the fuck are you expecting from me, Vanessa?"

 

"For you to let Richie off his fucking leash!" she says, setting her hands on her hips. "When are you going to let him have his own life so we can move on with ours?"

 

"Richie's not on a _leash,"_ he spits, "and I'm not holding him back from doing anything. He can do whatever he wants."

 

"Is that so? You didn't want him to leave last night. Today you chose to stay with him instead of me. It's like you're actively avoiding spending time with me," she says, crossing her arms over her chest. "I'm not supposed to be the third wheel in my own relationship, Seth!"

 

"If you hate this so much then why the fuck are you still here?" he snaps back.

 

Her mouth drops open and her eyes well up and Seth immediately feels guilty, but not guilty enough to tell her he's sorry.

 

"Because I love you, you asshole!" she yells. Once she's got the words out she seems to deflate, sagging back against the side of the car. "I'm just trying to figure out why I'm suddenly not enough for you."

 

"Shit." Seth scrubs a hand over his face and reaches for her but she shies away from him, wiping at her eyes. "C'mon, can we please not do this right now?" Seth protests. He figures out it was the wrong thing to say by the way her expression darkens.

 

"No, _you_ come on," she hisses, poking him squarely in the chest. "I don't know what's been up with you and Richie lately, I don't even think I _want_ to know, but work it the fuck out by the time I meet up with you in Little Rock."

 

She ducks into the car and a second later the engine roars to life. Seth knows he's supposed to say something, to apologize or call her back but he doesn't. He just stands there, hating himself for the relief that floods through him as he watches her leave.

 

\--

 

When Seth meets back up with Richie in the diner parking lot, he's looking at his phone, bemused.

 

"Carlos finally get in touch?" Seth asks.

 

Richie just turns the phone in Seth's direction so he can read what the screen says.

 

_cant make it. meet tmr, same time same place_

 

_c_

 

Seth closes his eyes, squeezing them shut tight against the sudden throb in his temple. "We haven't even met him and I already hate this guy."

 

This is doing nothing to help tame the sick roil of Seth's stomach right now, nor the hateful pressure building up behind his eyes. He _hates_ it when plans change and he stops feeling like he's in control of the situation, no longer holding all the cards.

 

"Another day here isn't the end of the world. Treat it like a vacation."

 

"Yeah, the world's most boring vacation," Seth sighs. "Five hundred dollars, Richard. This isn't _worth_ five hundred dollars."

 

"Favours are worth their weight in gold," Richie points out, ever the know it all. "Come on, what if this guy ends up being useful down the road? Eddie said he's connected."

 

"You think he's testing us?" Seth asks, swallowing hard, finding it difficult to keep his voice even. He ignores Richie's searching look, maybe clued in to something on his face, betraying his careful front of calm.

 

"May as well stick around to find out." Richie poses it more like a question, though, and Seth appreciates the illusion of a choice. "Lars can wait."

 

"Yeah, alright. But if Carlos jerks us around again we're finished."

 

"Amen, brother," Richie says, shoving Seth playfully as they walk back to the car.

 

\--

 

The drive back is about a half hour, and they spend most of it listening to the rumble of the engine and Johnny Cash's twangy voice drowning in static.

 

"Are you and Vanessa - okay?" Richie asks, after a while. "She seemed pretty upset earlier."

 

Seth shifts restlessly, leg jerking a little against the underside of the wheel. "No," he answers honestly. "We're really not."

 

"You feel like talking about it?"

 

Seth looks over at him for a second, and shakes his head. He'd rather forget that entire conversation ever happened at all. _Work it out_ , Vanessa had said. What the fuck was that even supposed to mean?

 

What the fuck does she _know?_

 

Seth swallows, his palms going clammy, stomach clenching in sudden unpleasant anxiety.

 

"Guess we should probably tell the clerk that we're staying another night," Richie says, as they pull into the inn parking lot.

 

Seth nods absently, looking around for Vanessa. She must have already been and gone, there's no sign of her car and no way she wouldn't have beaten them here.

 

"I think I'm gonna go back to the room first," Seth says.

 

"You want me to come with?"

 

Seth looks down at his lap. "Okay."

 

\--

 

All of Vanessa's stuff is gone.

 

Well, not all of it. There's one thing, sitting on the night table beside her and Seth's bed, drawing his eye in an instant, like it's a fucking crime scene, police tape and all. Seth picks it up and looks at it, the diamonds set into the gold band glittering in the light.

 

He pictures her taking it off, slamming it down onto the table where she had to know he'd see it instantly. Leaving quickly so she doesn't chance running into him, having to explain how she decided in the thirty minutes between here and the diner that their marriage wasn't worth saving after all.

 

Seth's not sure what he was expecting to find when he got back here, maybe that she'd just have left all her stuff, maybe even that she'd be waiting, hands on her hips, wondering why he hadn't come after her.

 

But now all he's got is this hunk of metal, worth far more than it deserves, about as useful as a fancy nail in a cheap wood coffin.

 

Richie comes up beside him. "Shit," he says, when he sees what Seth's holding. "Are you and Vanessa…?"

 

"I don't know," Seth says tightly, squeezing the ring. "I didn't think we were. But this is- this is new."

 

Richie gives him a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. "You'll get your Bonnie back," he says. "I'm sure she's just gotta blow off some steam."

 

"What do you care?" Seth asks, feeling strangely blank. He goes to sit down at the edge of the bed, suddenly lacking the energy to stand. "You don't even like her."

 

"Okay, I never actually said that," Richie says. "And even if I didn't like her, she makes you happy, doesn't she?"

 

"She does. Did. Fuck, I don't know."

 

Richie squints at him.

 

"Things have been weird lately, in case you hadn't noticed," Seth sighs. He picks at a loose coil of thread on the comforter, tugging it taut and letting it go again, until it's grown big enough to loop around his index finger. "Between all of us."

 

"How about we forget all that shit tonight? It hasn't been just you and me in a long time, brother."

 

"No," Seth mumbles. "I guess it hasn't."

 

"We can eat junk food and watch all those old cowboy movies Vanessa hates," Richie suggests. "Well, if they're on TV, anyway."

 

"Just like the old days."

 

A grin splits across Richie's face and he nods. "Like the old days." Then he looks over to check the clock on the night stand. "It's almost checkout. We should go make sure we can book here another night."

 

Seth gets up, looks around at the room, barren of Vanessa's bags and clothes. Empty, just like he feels. He doesn't want to be in here, much less by himself.

 

"Let's go," he replies, looking at Vanessa's ring once more before he pockets it, feeling it rest like an impossible weight against his thigh.

 

\--

 

Seth lags behind in the parking lot, letting Richie go on ahead.

 

He just wants a few minutes to breathe, hopefully quiet the tumult of emotion rattling around inside his head. He sort of regrets quitting smoking with Vanessa seven months ago, because right now he could really use a fucking cigarette.

 

When a cold wind picks up he takes that as his cue, rubbing his eyes and starting toward the main office, passing a couple along the way. A girl, pretty little redheaded omega, clinging to the arm of her much taller alpha girlfriend. Pressed close.

 

Seth holds up a hand at them in some semblance of a wave, unsurprised when it's only the redhead who waves back, smiling dreamily. Her alpha tugs her away, protective arm around her waist, a snarl ready and waiting in case Seth does something she doesn't like.

 

The envy is an unexpected jab to his midsection, though exactly what he's envious about, he's not really sure. Maybe all of it, the unabashed openness, the alpha's possessive stance, the omega's blatant adoration, written all over her face.

 

He kicks at the gravelly dirt in front of the building and makes his way up the steps.

 

"What do you mean, our room is booked? Yesterday you said it was open for the next two days," Seth hears Richie say, muffled through the screen door as Seth pushes it open with a screech of old springs.

 

Inside, the office is dimly lit and harshly shadowed, the ceiling strung with dust and old cobwebs and flypaper covered in tiny ancient corpses. The man at the front desk flicks his eyes up at Seth when he walks in - he's older, maybe about fifty, with silvery grey hair and a whiskery moustache. The hand written placard on his desk says, ‘Louis Gunderson.'

 

Richie shoots Seth an exasperated, _‘can you believe this?'_ look when Seth reaches the counter. "Six isn't available tonight," he says to Seth.

 

"It's a Saturday," Louis says pleasantly. "Busy time, lots of people come through here to get to the city."

 

"Do you have any other doubles?" Seth asks.

 

Louis glances down briefly at the ledger set on the desk in front of him. "Nope."

 

"Is there _anything_ available?" Richie presses, setting his hands out in front of him on the desk.

 

"One, thanks to a cancellation this morning. Single queen." Louis steeples his fingers and plasters on a mild, salesman's smile. They glance at each other, Richie giving him a hopeless kind of shrug. He's backlit by the dusty shafts of light streaming in through dirty windows, casting a long shadow over the floor.

 

Before Richie can say anything, Seth speaks for both of them. "A single's fine," he says in a forced kind of casual, turning to Richie. "You can handle sharing, can't you?"

 

If Seth's being honest he's not sure that _he_ can handle sharing, but bringing that up would make this weird and it _isn't_ weird, not in the least, because him and Richie are supposed to be normal brothers now and normal brothers can sleep in the same bed for a night, no problem.

 

"Sure, yeah," Richie sounds distant, almost distracted. "How much?" he asks Louis.

 

"Sixty-five a night," Louis says, expression splitting into a leer. "Checkout at eleven."

 

It's a total ripoff, fifteen more than what they paid last night for a room double the size, but Richie just digs a wad of cash out of his wallet and counts the bills.

 

\--

 

The new room isn't far from their old one, just three doors down. It doesn't take long to shift everything over (Seth had never realized just how _much_ of their stuff was Vanessa's until it only took one trip to move the remainder).

 

It's decorated much the same as their old one, wood paneling and the same avocado carpet, a single queen bed up against the wall to the left. Maybe it should be awkward right now with just the two of them after all this time, like it was before the Pink Panther job with Vanessa, but it's - not. It's comfortable, easy companionship.

 

Seth watches Richie in his periphery, dropping his stuff at the side of the bed closest to the door. Placing himself between Seth and the rest of the world, like he's always done, even when they were kids.

 

"I can sleep on the floor or something if you want me to," Richie says, scuffing the carpet with a socked toe. "Just this once, though, ‘cause you're the one who just got dumped."

 

Seth overlooks the sting of Richie's blunt phrasing. "Don't be stupid, we've slept together hundreds of times."

 

It comes out without much thought, Seth not thinking about the fact that this is the first time he's brought up the past so blatantly. But Richie's been doing it ever since they've been together again, plucking those memories out of the muck and dragging them to the surface.

 

So maybe it's Seth's turn to pick at the wound, just barely scabbed over.

 

"Alright then, smartass," Richie drawls. "Fuck me for trying to be considerate." He seems off-kilter, though, like he's noticed what Seth did too.

 

"I don't need you to be considerate," Seth says, waving Richie's concern away. "What I need you to do is go and grab those snacks we bought yesterday. They're still in the car, right?"

 

"I think so," Richie says. "Whatever's left anyway."

 

"Well, go on and get ‘em," Seth says, giving him a gentle shove. "You promised me junk food and a cowboy marathon."

 

Richie nods, but he's sluggish to go, lingering just this side of too long before reluctantly sliding his gaze away and heading out to the lot.

 

\--

 

It turns out that there's only Richie's gummy worms and half a bag of chips left, but, whatever, Seth's not really in this for the food anyway. He's in it for the distraction, having something to do that isn't just sitting around and moping.

 

By the time they get everything settled, the local network is playing _Oklahoma!_ and while that isn't exactly the Clint Eastwood classic Seth had in mind, it's good enough for background noise. Richie has a tendency to talk over the bulk of the movies he watches anyway, a habit that drives Vanessa nuts as much as it amuses Seth.

 

"You know they filmed this whole thing in Arizona?" Richie says, eating another gummy worm and rubbing his hands together to get rid of the sugar on his fingers. "There isn't a scene in this entire movie that was filmed in Oklahoma."

 

"Thank you, oh great king of useless trivia," Seth replies sarcastically. He steals one of Richie's worms and chews on it, sour cherry flavour bursting over his tongue. "Where do you even pick all this shit up, anyway?"

 

"It's called _reading_ , Seth, maybe you should try it sometime," Richie says drily. "And don't take all the red ones."

 

Seth plucks another red worm from the bag and dangles it in front of Richie's face. "What're you gonna do about it?"

 

Richie grabs for it but Seth backpedals away from him until he hits the wall, only realizing his mistake by the time he's already cornered. Richie scoots up between Seth's legs, holding him back against the wall by the shoulders.

 

"Give it back, jerk," Richie says, but Seth just gives him a shit eating grin and tosses the candy in his mouth.

 

"That's it, you're cut off." Richie leans away to grab the bag and tosses it to his side of the bed, out of Seth's reach. Seth takes advantage of Richie's lowered guard to push him back on his ass, scrambling out of Richie's grip.

 

But he barely makes it a foot before Richie twists around and grabs him, yanking him back by the arm so that Seth lands hard on his back with Richie on top of him.

 

"I wasn't done with you," Richie says, braced above Seth on his elbows so he can look at Seth better, keeping him pinned underneath his huge weight. "You're such a fucking _child_."

 

"Speak for yourself, I'm not the one tackling people."

 

Richie huffs a laugh and Seth suddenly becomes very preoccupied by the sensation of Richie's body pressed up to his, big and heavy.

 

"Really, though," Richie says, schooling his expression into something resembling serious. "What's your deal lately? You've been... weird, even before you went off on my date yesterday."

 

"Date is one way to put it," scoffs Seth, irritated just by the thought of that guy, smug faced and cocky, just because he can take a dick up his ass (like most of the population, thank you very much).

 

Richie looks wholly unimpressed. "Alright, semantics _aside_ , what's actually going on with you?"

 

"What's been up with you and Vanessa?" Seth shoots back. He can tell by Richie's nearly imperceptible flinch that this wasn't what Richie was expecting.

 

"I told you, we just don't get along," Richie says tightly.

 

"Maybe I just didn't get along with _him_ either."

 

The lighting in here is dim, but Richie's clear enough, the smooth lines of his face and the pout of his lips, glasses slid down his nose. Strands of dark hair falling over his forehead.

 

"Seems to be a trend with you," Richie replies, harsh afternoon shadows cutting lines across his cheekbones. "What with you staring daggers at everyone I bring home."

 

It shouldn't come as a shock that Richie noticed, it's not like Seth was exactly subtle, but his stomach drops and his palms go clammy anyway, like he's just been caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar.

 

"I'm not stupid, brother."

 

Seth breathes deep, exhaling through his nose.

 

He's spent the past year, _more_ than a year, telling himself that he doesn't want Richie. That they were never anything, just a footnote on a page, a seven year blip on a hundred-odd radar. Thrown together out of convenience.

 

And maybe they were, at the very start, just trying to keep Seth's secret. But then it became something else, this huge thing between them that grew and grew until they couldn't contain it, couldn't keep it behind closed doors, until it poured out and festered and Seth had to _go_ because it was too much, smothering, stifling, like the smoke that choked him on the night Richie pulled him from the fire.

 

He'd even started to really believe that they'd been nothing after all, until that moment two months ago when Richie kissed him and something had shifted, deep down inside, a tug at the weak thread holding together the tattered hole in the tapestry of his life, snapping it in two.

 

Seth's tried so hard to run away from what he is, deny it and grind it into the dirt and forget about it, to deal with the rising tide of feelings long dead, being dredged up all over again. But now, he's lost Vanessa anyway, even after all his work to put up a front, to ignore all these thoughts he never should have had.

 

He's _supposed_ to want his life with her, a normal beta life, no heats, no desperation, no cowering in the shadows, afraid to show his true face. He's not supposed to want everything Richie is, not supposed to love crossing that line, knowing they're brothers, they're blood, that everything they are is wrong to the core.

 

But he does.

 

He wants it so fucking bad his entire being hurts with it, rough hands and a hard body and hushed promises, teeth in his neck like a motherfucking brand. No suppressants, no inhibitors, so everyone knows what he is, so everyone can scent Richie on him, alpha twined with the sweet of his omega, so everyone knows who owns him, heart-body-soul.

 

Seth is so tired of fighting it.

 

"What do you want from me, Seth?" Richie asks softly. He's looking down at Seth right now the way a collector might look at a particularly delicate museum artefact. Appraising, appreciative, but a little wary too.

 

"Richie, I-" Seth starts.

 

_I want to kiss you_.

 

He swallows, tries again. "‘S just-"

 

_I fucking need you_.

 

"What?" Richie urges.

 

_God, I miss you._

 

There's nothing graceful about the way Seth lunges at Richie and slams their mouths together, teeth clacking, splitting Richie's lip on a canine judging by the sudden tang of copper but Richie just grunts and presses Seth back down into the mattress, licking into his mouth.

 

Seth sucks on Richie's tongue, feeling too-hot, as he lifts his hips up and feels the hard line of Richie's dick push up against his, through all their hateful layers of clothes.

 

"Seth, hey," Richie says, pulling back despite Seth's best efforts to keep him there. "Hold on."

 

And then Seth is gripped with an abrupt, horrible thought that he's read this all wrong, and Richie doesn't want him at all.

 

He lays there, statue still. Waiting for the hammer to fall.

 

"Are you just doing this because you don't want to be alone?" Richie asks, pointedly. "Or because it's _convenient_ for you?"

 

There's vulnerability there, under the facade of careful indifference, and Seth hates himself a little for making Richie feel this way, for stripping away the cocky shell he presents to the rest of the world.

 

"Every day, Richard. I hated every single person I saw leaving your room. I watched you touch them, and I wanted it to be me," Seth says. It comes out in a rush, lifting a weight from his shoulders. "Everything always comes back to you, even when I try to change it. It's always about you, it's always fucking _been_ you."

 

Richie just watches him a moment, like he's deciding whether or not he likes Seth's answer.

 

"I like Vanessa," Richie eventually says. "I really do. She's great, Seth. She is."

 

Seth senses the ‘but' coming, a mile away.

 

"But I can't handle seeing you with her," Richie eventually says, and something in his tone makes Seth's chest go tight. "I've tried to be okay with it, I've tried to find someone else, but I can't. I don't want to."

 

"Richie," Seth says, tilting his head up, close enough that their noses almost touch. "I want this. I want- you."

 

Richie shuts his eyes tight, and when he opens them again he's fixated on Seth. "Show me."

 

Seth wriggles out from under Richie and tugs at his sleeve, drawing him forward so he's sitting at the edge of the mattress. Then he slides off the bed, dropping to his knees on the rough carpet in between Richie's legs.

 

Richie looks down at him, breathing heavy, face a potent mixture of hungry and _wanting_ , and Seth holds the gaze a second before he shoves his face into Richie's crotch. He hooks his fingers through Richie's belt loops, holding Richie's hips still as he rubs his face all over the growing bulge in his pants.

 

God, Seth needs this, been craving it far longer than he wants to admit, having this heady musk filling his nose. He can feel himself getting wetter by the second, that sexy-slick feeling that's always accompanied by the strange, crawly sensation of his body getting ready to take a knot.

 

"Oh fuck, Seth." Richie breathes deep, scenting him, dropping his palm to the top of Seth's head. Seth spits on the fabric of Richie's pants and pushes it through with his tongue, sucking at the wet spot until Richie growls above him and yanks his head back to allow enough room to get his fly undone.

 

This is everything Seth's always tried not to be, an omega slut who's desperate for cock, gagging for it, ready to roll over and submit at the right heated glance. But it's so freeing to give in to it, to let his mouth drop open and hand over the reigns, let Richie smear his lips with precome and feed him his dick, hard and twitching in Richie's grip, the skin velvet soft against Seth's tentative tongue.

 

"You're so hungry for it," Richie croons. The tone of his voice shoots another pulse of arousal through Seth, making his neglected cock throb almost painfully in his pants. "Being so good for me, big brother."

 

His hand comes to rest on Seth's head again, tugging gentle at his hair, curling short strands around his fingers. Seth's got his lips sealed over the tip, teasing at the slit until precome floods over the flat of his tongue and Richie's groaning his approval, hips jerking, the grip on Seth's hair tightening.

 

Seth releases his hold on Richie's hips, wrapping his fingers around the base of Richie's dick instead, relishing the hiss of breath above him as he squeezes the sensitive flesh where Richie's knot will grow. He can't possibly fit Richie's entire length in his mouth, so he compromises with his hand, stroking the shaft while he slides his lips over the head.

 

Seth is long out of practice with this, and it probably shows - he keeps forgetting to be careful with his teeth, keeps losing the rhythm, and he's pretty sure he's drooling a puddle onto the comforter, but if Richie cares he's not showing it. His breathing's uneven and he's started rocking his hips in slow little hitches that make the head of his dick rub back and forth over the ridges of Seth's palate, like he can barely hold himself back from shoving his cock down Seth's throat.

 

"Wanna fuck you."

 

The sentence hits Seth like a battering ram, more wet heat leaking out to dampen Seth's boxers at the thought of Richie's cock forcing him open, of feeling this big, thick length push inside him, filling him all the way up. He gives Richie a hard suck and feels him tense, the muscles in his thighs going rigid before he relaxes again.

 

"C'mere," Richie says, lifting Seth's head up and gently easing him away. "Lemme see you."

 

Seth obediently stumbles to his feet on unsteady legs, half asleep after being folded under him. Richie watches every move he makes, tracking the shimmy of Seth's hips as he works his jeans and mostly sodden boxers down his thighs. He shivers a little when the chill of the room hits his overheated skin, and then he's just standing there, naked save for his white button up shirt and his socks.

 

Richie leans in and snags Seth's hips, urging him downward until he gets the picture and straddles Richie's lap, legs on either side of him. Richie's dick rests against Seth's belly, wet with spit, and Seth wants it inside him so bad his mouth is watering.

 

"You're so pretty," Richie murmurs, as he runs his palms down from Seth's hips to the curve of his ass.

 

"Girls are pretty," Seth glares. "'m not a girl."

 

Richie pushes two fingers delicately at Seth's rim, dipping in and out again in a barely there tease that's making Seth's legs shake. "Coulda fooled me," he says, with a wolfish grin, full of teeth.

 

Richie's so casual, like they're talking about the weather, like he's got no clue that Seth's burning up right in front of him.

 

"You get wet like a girl," Richie drawls, pushing his fingers inside to the third knuckle. "You can get knocked up like a girl." He scissors his fingers wide, making Seth whimper and clutch at his shoulders. "So what would that make you?"

 

He says the last part slow, like he's sharing a secret, and Seth cringes with the shame of it because Richie's right, he's fucking right and Seth just wants to hide away, could just fucking die if this didn't feel so good, if he wasn't so desperate for everything Richie's offering.

 

"Except," Richie says, twisting his fingers and finding Seth's prostate like he's got a fucking cheat sheet for finding every spot that makes Seth go crazy. "You get me hotter than any girl I've ever met, big brother."

 

Seth flushes and Richie kisses him, hard, before he gently tugs his fingers out, knuckles grazing Seth's rim on the downpull like a brand, burning Seth up with heat. Seth moans into Richie's mouth, digging nails into his shoulders, scratching them down the fabric of his shirt.

 

When they break apart Richie looks wild and he's clutching at Seth, digging his fingertips into the meat of Seth's ass. "Want me to fuck you now?"

 

"Yeah," Seth says, the word coming out more like a sigh as Richie's fingers skate up to brush his hipbones. "Want it, Richie."

 

Richie tips Seth off of him, onto the bed, so he can watch as Richie takes off his clothes, leaving them in a heap at his feet. Fuck, he's so tall, so huge, with that big alpha dick hung between his legs, flushed red and swollen hard. All for Seth.

 

Seth moans, low in his throat.

 

"Hands and knees," Richie orders, and Seth obeys before he even has time to think about it, presenting like an omega's supposed to, ass up, head bowed down. Seth rarely used to do this, never much wanted to unless he was in heat but Seth's desperate to show off for Richie, to impress him, make him want Seth as much as Seth wants him.

 

The mattress creaks under Richie's weight, dipping down with a screech of springs as he kneels behind Seth. Seth's thighs are starting to go tacky with drying slick and Richie's so close now that Seth can feel the heat of him radiating against his skin.

 

"Hurry up," Seth whines, feeling Richie's dick slot into his crack, so close yet not close enough, just shy of where Seth desperately needs it.

 

"Got plenty of time, brother." Richie's hips shift and his cock slides close, catches on Seth's rim and then skates away again. "You want this, don't you? Tell me how much."

 

Seth moans and hitches his hips up. "Come on," he breathes, fisting his hands in the sheets, rubbing his face into the pillow, just for _some_ kind of sensation, anything. "Fuck, Richard, _please_."

 

Richie rewards him with the tip, pushing it just past Seth's rim, except it might not be a reward so much as it is a punishment because then he stops where he's at, leaving Seth aching, squirming like he can get Richie deeper if he just _wants_ it bad enough.

 

"You can do better than that," Richie purrs, thumb pressed to Seth's rim, smearing slick, shocky jolts of arousal that make Seth's dick bead up and leak. "I know you can."

 

Seth knows what Richie wants to hear. But he doesn't want to say it, it's too much, too far, past the point of no return.

 

"Richie, come on," he says, in a small voice.

 

Richie gives him another inch, and Seth could cry with how quick the relief at the extra stretch melts back into that furious, burning desire to be filled, for Richie to slam into him and stay there.

 

"Say it," Richie hisses, jerking away when Seth tries to get close, to get more of him inside, keeping them even like the brat little brother he is.

 

"No," Seth says, craning his head to look up at Richie, as defiant as he can be with a dick in his ass and an entire body that's screaming at him to just spit the words out, give Richie what he wants. But they're stuck in his throat, all twisted up somewhere, vice tight. It's everything he's told himself he's not. Everything he's never wanted to want.

 

Richie smirks down at him and pulls out, nearly all the way. "Guess you don't want it after all."

 

The dam shatters, just like that, and all of a sudden everything's pouring out of Seth, spilling into the open.

 

"Richie!" Seth gasps. "Fuck Richie please please _please_ Richie _breed me_ , fucking knock me up, make me take it, just fucking _do something!"_

 

Richie's hands go bruise tight on his hips and then he shoves into Seth, bottoming out in one hard, brutal thrust. Seth nearly sobs with the relief of it, finally having that perfect stretch splitting him open, hot and twitching inside him.

 

"That's a good boy, Seth," Richie says, hips snapping back, holding just long enough that Seth thinks for a terrifying second that Richie might not decide to push inside again. "Gonna give it to you."

 

_"_ Yeah, _yeah_ Richard, fuck me, God, I need it Richie come _on_."

 

Richie finally listens, sliding home, easy as you please with all the slick leading the way, more leaking out to trickle down Seth's thighs even as Richie starts screwing him in earnest.

 

Richie's knot is already growing, catching at Seth's rim, a pinprick of pain twisting up with all the pleasure in a way that's got Seth moaning like he's a porn star every time Richie fucks into him, grabbing fistfuls of the sheets and pressing his face into the pillow just to try and keep quiet.

 

"You're going to wake the whole motel if you keep that up," Richie says, but then he gets the angle just right as if waking the entire _world_ is exactly what he wants, because he hits Seth's prostate and Seth couldn't have held back the yell that claws its way out of him if he tried.

 

Richie clues in quick to what he's found, adjusts slightly and just goes to town, driving Seth into the mattress with every wicked slam of his hips. Seth's fucking losing it, whining, writhing under Richie, so hard his entire _being_ seems to ache with it, and he's gonna come, he's gonna fucking come without a hand on his dick, with just the relentless pound of Richie's cock inside him.

 

But then Richie's hips stutter and he loses the rhythm and Seth almost cries because he's so close, has to bite the pillow to keep from howling as Richie's knot swells fuller and he drops to all fours above Seth, back to chest as his thrusts turn into a hard, dirty grind that forces Seth down almost flat on the mattress.

 

"I'm gonna knock you up, brother," Richie whispers, breath hot against the shell of Seth's ear.

 

"Do it," Seth hisses, " _doitdoitdoit_ , 'm yours, fucking _own_ me Richie, give it to me."

 

There's a vicious groan and a rough hand shoves up under the hem of Seth's shirt, rucking it up around his ribs. Richie finds Seth's nipple and rubs it with his thumb and the touch sparks through Seth like a live wire.

 

He clenches down hard, near involuntary, and all of a sudden Richie's snarling and his knot grows even _bigger_ , larger than Seth remembers it ever feeling, his body struggling to accommodate it all.

 

"Mine," Richie says, in a low, furious growl, "you're mine, all mine, Seth, gonna keep you tied and bred, keep you claimed, make sure everyone knows who you belong to."

 

And then heat floods into Seth, that first searing wave of come slicking up his insides, painting him, marking him for what he is, a slut, a bitch, a whore for Richie's dick, and God _fucking_ help him how did he ever live without this?

 

"Richie, fuck Richie, Richard please, touch me-"

 

Seth dissolves into helpless whimpers, hitching his hips up, desperate for friction, needing to come more than he needs his next breath.

 

Richie paws clumsily at him, finds his nipple again and pinches it just this side of too hard, and all of a sudden Seth's spilling all over the bed like he's never had an orgasm before in his life, stars exploding behind his eyelids as he collapses into a tangle of spent limbs, panting wounded little noises into the pillow.

 

Richie delicately rolls them over, careful not to jostle Seth too much. He curls around him, hooking a leg over Seth's and nosing around his neck, settling for sucking a hickey into one of Seth's shoulders.

 

Seth feels worn out, like Richie's just picked him apart and pieced him back together again.

 

Richie feels too good inside him, snugged deep and tight, filling him up just the way he needs. He'd purr if he could, but instead he just lays there and dozes and thinks about lacing their fingers together.

 

Another slick of heat pulses into Seth and Richie tenses up against his back, grip tightening on Seth as if he could possibly pull him any closer.

 

"Mine," Richie murmurs, drowsy and fucked out.

 

"Yeah, buddy," Seth whispers. "‘M yours."

 

\--

 

Seth's cell starts to buzz across the night table just as Richie's easing out of Seth, reminding Seth distinctly of why he doesn't like the aftermath of knotting. He suppresses a shudder at the trickle of slick and spunk leaking out, grabbing clumsily for the phone.

 

"Shit," Seth hisses, propping himself up to get a better look at the caller ID. It's Vanessa. "Fuck."

 

As soon as he's pulled away, a low, warning rumble erupts from deep in Richie's chest, followed by a strong, solid arm snatching Seth around the waist and yanking him back.

 

"Stay," Richie snarls against the back of Seth's neck. His voice is gravel rough and commanding, and it takes every ounce of willpower Seth has not to just _submit_.

 

"C'mon," Seth says, keeping his voice soft, has to be gentle with Richie like this. "Gotta take this."

 

"Later." Richie's arm tightens around him, keeping him close, and Seth relents. He flops back down again, pressed up flush to Richie, and tells himself it's probably not important anyway. She'll call again if she really needs something.

 

After it's gone to voicemail, it doesn't vibrate again and Seth lets himself relax a little, not that Richie's giving him much choice in the matter. But when he's like this it's near pointless to argue with him, he gets locked too deep into his alpha headspace after a tie and it takes a while for him to come out of it again.

 

So Seth dozes until Richie's breathing evens out. He gives it another couple minutes before he tries to get up again, and this time Richie lets him go, grip slack.

 

Seth drops off the bed onto coltish legs, freezing for a second when Richie makes a tiny noise of protest. But Richie doesn't wake, just tucks himself into Seth's warm spot and burrows into his pillow, well and truly out.

 

Seth digs a pair of pyjama pants out of his bag and tugs them on, wincing at the ache in his ass making itself known as he limps over to the window, phone in hand.

 

He's dreading the call even as he dials voicemail, fingers shaky and clumsy with every press of a button.

 

_Seth, it's me._

 

_Val is okay, they let her off with a warning. I'm staying in her dorm tonight._

 

There's a second of dead air, and Seth is sort of hoping that's it. But then he hears her breathe in that choked sort of way she does when she's about to cry and his heart drops.

 

_I shouldn't have said that stuff. About us, or about Richie. I know he's the only blood you've got left, and I know that you love him. I get it, you and him are a package deal._

 

_I had a lot of time to think, and I guess I overreacted - I just let everything build up for so long, and you didn't really seem to care. But it's not all on you. It's me, too. And I do want to fix this, if you want to try._

 

_I hope you'll decide to give me the ring back when I see you tomorrow in Little Rock._

 

There's another pause. When she speaks again her voice cracks and goes soft and Seth feels like something's about to split apart inside him.

 

_I love you._

 

It clicks and the robotic voice at the other end starts to rattle off questions but he just snaps the phone shut and stands there a second, staring at it, before he carefully tucks it into his bag in the corner.

 

He inhales, shaky, presses the heels of his hands against his eyes and rubs until stars explode behind his lids. Fuck. Everything is fucked, and it's all his fault. His own selfish desires, constantly at war within him, tugging him in opposite directions, threatening to tear him to pieces.

 

He knows what he has to do. He chose his path when he left Richie, and he's come too far to turn back now.

 

He's not going to let Vanessa become just another casualty, caught up in the blast zone of his existence. If there's even a sliver of a chance that he can honour the commitment he made in front of Vanessa and the priest and whatever higher power may or may not be watching over him, he has to try.

 

He looks over at Richie, so vulnerable in his sleep, folded in on himself like he's bracing for impact. Like he's always slept, ever since they were kids.

 

Richie mumbles something when Seth shoves him over, reaches for Seth and tugs him close as soon as Seth's gotten himself under the covers again.

 

"Richie?" Seth whispers, squirming until he's facing Richie, still caught up in the trap of his arms. He doesn't mind.

 

Richie's eyes flutter open and he looks blearily at Seth. "Mn?"

 

Seth's chest suddenly tightens up, a knot forming around his sternum, when he realizes that he can never have this again. Ever. He'll never have another quiet moment with Richie like this, tucked together in the dark, secrets exposed, laid bare, accepted. For everything they are.

 

The backs of his eyes are burning and he fiercely blinks away the sudden blur in his vision. He has a wife he loves and a life to live out with her and that's going to be enough.

 

But tonight the mistake's already been made, the cat's out of the bag and just for now, while they're in this room and the rest of the world doesn't have to exist, he belongs to Richie, and Richie belongs to him.

 

He presses his face to Richie's chest, nudging his head underneath his chin, and then he lets himself drift.

 

\--

 

The bed is empty.

 

Seth panics, for a second, like last night wasn't real, as if he fucking dreamed all of it and Vanessa's still here and they haven't even gone to the diner yet, like some ass backwards groundhog day.

 

But then he rolls over and feels the sticky, tacky mess coating his ass and the backs of his thighs, and the fading warmth in the huge dip beside him where Richie must have been and he shuts his eyes again because he's not prepared to deal with any of this, not yet not now maybe not _ever_.

 

The shower's running and after another couple minutes Seth manages to force himself out of bed, hating the sun streaming in through the curtains, like a big ol' fuck you from Mother Nature herself.

 

Seth supposes last night may as well have counted as a big ol' fuck you to her too, so who knows, maybe he deserves the agony of a bright, sunny day.

 

In spite of that, he draws the curtains as tightly closed as they'll allow and flips off the window and the birds and the stupid fucking sun he doesn't deserve to have shine down on him.

 

And then he barges in on Richie, because that's what they do, occupy each others' space and time and lives like there's always an invitation open, unspoken but there all the same.

 

Richie doesn't notice him at first, has his back to the door and his head under the spray, body obscured and fuzzy through the frosted glass of the shower stall.

 

"Why'd you get first shower?" Seth complains. "You're gonna use up all the hot water."

 

Richie sticks his head out a second later, half soapy, looking entirely unimpressed. "Because I got up first, dipshit," he says. "You know the rules."

 

"I'm also covered in - _stuff_ ," Seth hisses, suddenly flustered.

 

"Stuff? What are you, twelve?"

 

Seth glares and shucks his pants. "Move over."

 

Richie rolls his eyes but obligingly makes room. "It's called semen, Seth. Or come. Jizz. Spu-"

 

_"Richard,"_ Seth says in exasperation, stepping into the shower and immediately turning the temperature down, because Richie's always liked to keep it right in that sweet spot between Mordor and the surface of the sun. "Yeah, thank you, _I know what it's called."_

 

Richie sighs dramatically and hands Seth a bar of soap. "What's the point of whining about hot water when you take cold showers anyway?"

 

"This is the kind of temperature _normal people_ like," Seth sniffs. "You must be cold blooded."

 

Richie snorts, but then a grin spreads across his face. "Maybe I just need you to warm me up."

 

Seth pinks up but grins back, bites his lip, holding it between his teeth.

 

When Richie kisses him, their mouths slide messily together, slippery with water as Richie pins him to the ugly beige tiles and fucking _lifts_ him, like he weighs nothing at all (when the fuck did Richie get so _strong),_ and pushes into him, wet with his own slick and the leftover spunk from knotting last night.

 

They fuck slow this time, facing each other, and even though Seth knows it's wrong and it's everything he can't be he's chanting _yoursyoursyours_ in his head, over and over until he's splattering Richie's belly and slumping boneless into his arms.

 

\--

 

Once they're finally clean, and Richie's gone to dig out some clothes, Seth finds himself standing in the bathroom with his razor in his hand, looking at it in trepidation.

 

Richie eventually pads up behind him, dressed in his suit, no tie yet. He presses their bodies together and wraps his arms around Seth's middle, unconcerned with the damp on Seth's skin soaking into his clothes.

 

"You could let it grow," Richie says, resting his chin on Seth's shoulder.

 

Seth makes a face. "Vanessa doesn't like it like that."

 

"I do," Richie says, plainly. He rubs his cheek against the scratchy stubble on Seth's.

 

Seth pauses, considering. "You want me to go all caveman for you?"

 

"I think you'd own it," Richie replies.

 

Seth leans back heavily against Richie, watching their reflections. They look nice together, Richie's model good looks and pale complexion next to Seth's rounder features and tawny skin.

 

"But I'm pretty sure you could grow a beard down to your ankles and I'd still want to fuck you," Richie adds, in a low voice right by Seth's ear.

 

"Hot," Seth says sarcastically, but he's grinning and so is Richie and Seth hadn't realized how much he'd missed seeing Richie grin like this, carefree and happy. It doesn't last long, melts into a sad sort of frown the longer they stand there, Richie waiting patiently for Seth to speak, Seth working up the courage to do it.

 

"I can't- we-" Seth's throat works as he struggles to find the right words. He eventually sighs, gaze aimed downward. "I have a wife, Richard."

 

"I know."

 

"I love her." It feels foreign on Seth's lips, forbidden, as if that's not a string of words he's supposed to say here, in this shit motel room that's become theirs and theirs alone.

 

"I know," Richie repeats, ringing hollow.

 

"I owe it to her to try and fix this."

 

Seth may be a lot of things, a criminal and a conman and a thief being among them, but one thing he's not is a liar. He said his vows on the day he married Vanessa in that shitty little Alabama chapel, and he meant every word of them.

 

"You gonna need me to go?" Richie says quietly.

 

Fear grips Seth, the clench of panic like cold fingers squeezing, long and spidery.

 

"Yeah," he whispers. "Probably should. After Little Rock."

 

Seth feels sick as he pulls out of Richie's arms and turns to face him, tilting his head up to meet Richie's eyes.

 

Richie's lips twist, and all of a sudden he's pawing at Seth, pulling him close so they're chest to chest.

 

"Richard-"

 

Richie doesn't let him finish, just dips down and cups Seth's jaw and kisses him like it's the last thing he'll ever do.

 

Seth gives in easy, melting into Richie's grip, fingers curling into the front of his shirt as he returns the kiss, open mouthed and sloppy.

 

For a last kiss it's not really that great, clumsy teeth and morning breath and far too little finesse, but Seth commits every tiny detail to memory anyway.

 

And then Richie leaves him alone, going to pack up the car, and Seth shaves his face smooth.

 

\--

 

It's a lot harder than Seth had expected to leave the inn in the rearview, Vanessa's ring burning a hole in his pocket, like it's in danger of cutting right through to his skin.

 

Carlos shows up at the diner promptly at nine this time, with cold, serpentine eyes and a sly grin that makes Seth doubly glad he didn't leave Richie to do this alone. He hands them the package, hefty and tied with twine, and says he'll be in touch before he pulls away in a sleek, black sedan.

 

The package gets shoved under the passenger seat and then they're gone for real this time, leaving Ashdale behind, probably never to return. Not that Seth's too upset about the place itself, it's just another one horse town like the countless others they've driven through. But it's like leaving a piece of himself behind too, that part of him that's allowed to want Richie, disappearing into the dust.

 

Richie's unusually animated on the drive, and maybe he's even forcing it a little but Seth's grateful for the distraction. Richie's going through Vanessa's stack of maps and reading off the dumber sounding town names he spots on the paper, pointing out road signs and little factoids from the mountain of brochures they've amassed over the past couple months.

 

They pull off for lunch in Fort Smith, after Richie spots their favourite small chain pizza place advertised in one of the brochures, which must have expanded out here.

 

They end up eating in a park near the edge of town, sitting side by side on a bench that's a lot like the one at the park near Eddie's place, where they used to go all the time after school.

 

Seth looks at Richie, expecting anything but the rush of deep, intense affection that hits him as he watches Richie eat and smile at the birds chirping in the tree across from them.

 

Richie suddenly turns to him and his expression splits into a crooked grin. "You got sauce on you, goof," he chides, and wipes the tomato sauce off Seth's chin with his pinkie, popping it into his mouth.

 

Then Richie goes back to watching the wildlife, oblivious.

 

As if that tiny little gesture didn't just kick Seth's entire world off its axis, turning his savoury, flavourful bite of pizza to ash on his tongue.

 

He stares dumbly up at Richie as something huge and terrifying sinks its teeth into him. Because they're almost to Little Rock and none of this can ever happen again and he's head over heels in- _fucking_ -love with his brother.

 

Fuck.

 


End file.
